


The Placebo Effect

by Elwa



Series: Psychic Shawn [1]
Category: Psych
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, Pre-Slash, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-02
Updated: 2012-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:53:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elwa/pseuds/Elwa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you tell yourself a lie long enough, can it become true? Could Shawn really be psychic? Of course, he also tells himself he's happy but he's still taking the pills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/am not associated with/make no money from Psych.

**1987**

The three kids huddled behind the bush, their breath coming out in ghostly vapors.  The boy in the front raised the heavy binoculars to his eyes, adjusting them for a closer look.  The others clutched their weapons close to their chests, shivering in the cold.

“Why are we doing this?” the second boy whispered, “It’s freezing out here.  And he’s going to kill us.”

“Gus,” the boy with the binoculars cried, “Live a little.  Besides, he totally deserves it for busting us on the water balloons.”

“I didn’t want to do that either,” Gus reminded him, “It’s too cold for water balloons.  We could have caught pneumonia.  We still might.”  He shivered.

“This is stupid,” the third member of their party whined loudly, “Why don’t we attack already?”  The boys responded with loud ‘shhhh’s.

“You said you’d be quiet and not give us away if we let you come,” Shawn said.

“Well you said it’d be fun,” the kid answered, “You didn’t say we’d be sitting in the bushes, freezing to death all night.”

“I told you it’d be boring,” Gus said, “You’re the one who threatened to run to Mom if we didn’t let you come.”

“It’s not boring,” Shawn grumbled, “You just don’t know how to go on a stake out.  And it’s not cold.”  The other two looked at Shawn in disbelief.  Shawn ignored their stares and the fact that he was shivering and stared back defiantly before looking through the binoculars again.

“Shawn, it’s freezing,” Gus said, “Let’s just attack already, before Mom comes looking for me and Joy.”

“I’m not cold,” Shawn answered stubbornly.

“Your friend is stupid,” Joy told her brother, “It’s zero degrees out here.”

“It’s not zero degrees,” Gus answered with an eye roll before addressing Shawn again, “But it is freezing out here.  Haven’t you seen enough?”

“Not yet,” Shawn answered, “And just tell yourself it isn’t cold and you won’t be.  It’s like a gazebo effect.”  This last comment came from a detailed talk his dad had given him once about his outlook after Shawn had whined once too often in one of their lessons.  Shawn had been annoyed at the time and only remembered bits and pieces of the talk which he thought totally stupid anyway; how can just thinking you’re not sick make you feel better?  Not surprisingly, neither Gus nor Joy appreciated his mangled words of wisdom.   When Gus and Joy continued to mumble about the cold, Shawn continued to stubbornly insist he was quite warm.  Finally he tuned them out when the scene he was spying on started to get interesting.  He watched for a few minutes, forgetting about annoying sisters and annoying friends and the cold.

“Hey,” he called to the others, “Get ready, they’re getting to the mushy bit.  Finally.”

“Whatever,” Joy said, peering between the leaves of the bush while Shawn put the binoculars carefully away and picked up his own weapon.  Before he could say anything cool to begin their mission, Joy got tired of waiting.  She leaped around their hiding place with a battle cry of “Charge!” forcing the boys to follow with screams of their own.

Their unsuspecting victims leaped up, one with an angry roar the other with a high pitched shriek as their nerf bullets found their mark.

“Shawn, Burton, Joy, you are dead!” the teenage boy roared and the three children scattered, still screaming while the teenager’s girlfriend watched.

It was only later, much much later after Mrs. Guster had sent him home and his father had busted him for stealing the binoculars and he was lying in bed tucked beneath a mountain of blankets, when he realized that perhaps what his father said was right.  Maybe saying something often enough could make it true.  Because for a while, a very brief while, he hadn’t felt the cold.

**Present Day**

“I’m a psychic.”  Shawn had lost track of how many times he had said that.  Mostly this statement got him looks of confusion, annoyance or awe.  Very seldomly there would be a darker look of hatred or fear, granted usually by the bad guy of the week after he had poked a hole into their carefully fabricated deceptions, but also by the occasional religious zealot who regretted the end of witch hunts.  More recently he had been getting nods of acceptance by those who had grown used to his antics.  Even Lassiter had stopped with the eye rolling in public.  This time, the person he was speaking to had settled on confusion.

“You were in a hurry because you’re psychic?” the cop asked, a tad bit of impatience in his voice.  The confusion was leaning towards annoyance.

“Head psychic for the SBPD,” Shawn elaborated in his ‘the spirits are pulling at me and it’s slightly painful’ voice, “I’m being drawn someplace, pulled if you will, by a cry for help.”  The officer’s expression didn’t change.  It was just Shawn’s luck to get pulled over by one of the few cops he wasn’t familiar with. 

“You should really let me go,” Shawn added, “Before it’s too late!”

“You threatening me?” the officer demanded, his eyes narrowing.

“No, no, look,” Shawn answered, stumbling for something to convince the guy and, if he was lucky, get out of a ticket, “I’m a psychic and the spirits tell me I need to be somewhere or someone will be hurt!”  He let his eyes dart over the man, taking in every detail and processing them then turned his head away, clutching it while he scrunched up his face into what Gus liked to call his ‘psychic constipation’ look.  From the corner of his eye he thought he saw a swirl of dark red and white but when he turned his head again the uniform was its regular policeman blue.  The man still looked annoyed.

“I’m sensing…I’m sensing that you just moved here, transfer…” Shawn gasped out (he looked too old, too sure of himself to be a rookie and Shawn was positive he had never seen him before), “You come from, from Texas,” he continued (belt buckle, not standard issue for the SBPD, featured longhorns, the state was just a guess but from the twitch of surprise in the man’s eye, a good one), “I see, I see you left, because, a death…(black band around his wrist),  you wanted a new start, by the ocean because…because she died and…dolphins.”  And he stopped, because really he was starting to get carried away if he was coming up with something like dolphins from thin air.  He abandoned his psychic stance to see the man’s reaction, hoping for awe rather than annoyance.  Apparently he had gone a bit too far, though, straight into hatred.

“What do you know about Anna?” the man demanded, suddenly grabbing Shawn roughly by his shirt.  He would have knocked him right off his bike if he had let go. 

“Hey, hey, dude!” Shawn cried, and then the second police officer was running from the car to see why his partner had suddenly become violent.

“How did you know about her?” the first officer screamed, not releasing his grip, “Who told you about it?”

“Hey, Mike, what are you doing?” the second officer cried, “Let him go!”

“He knew about Anna!” the officer answered, his voice an insane mixture of anger and pain, “He knew about the dolphins!”  Shawn considered bringing up the ‘psychic’ line again but in light of the fisted hands digging into his ribs he decided to let the second officer handle it.  Luckily, said officer did, in fact, recognize Shawn and said it for him.

“It’s all right,” the officer said carefully, trying to defuse the situation, “That’s just Spencer; he’s a psychic.  And a civilian, come on, let him go.”  He leaned in and said something softly, meant just for Officer Mike’s ears.  Shawn caught something about Chief Vick.  Slowly, Mike unclenched his fists.  Shawn took a steadying breath, still trying to play himself off as totally cool despite the way his heart was racing.  Mike wandered back towards the squad car under the other officer’s direction.

“Sorry about that,” the second said once the first had reached the car, “He’s going through some things, you know?”  He sounded slightly nervous; probably didn’t want Shawn to report them to the chief. 

“It’s perfectly all right,” Shawn answered, hiding his own nerves behind an all-knowing demeanor, “I can sense his pain.  Carry on then, and look after him.”  The officer nodded once, obviously relieved, and returned to his car.  Shawn breathed out his own sigh of relief.  For a second, the anger radiating off the officer had truly scared him.  Still, at least he had gotten away without a speeding ticket.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Whoa, hey, turn right here!”  Flashing lights meant something was going on, something that would potentially lead to his next pay check.  His current chauffeur looked less enthused.

“I’ve told you, Shawn, I have a meeting,” Gus said, his tone annoyed, “I’m dropping you off at the office, no stops.”

“Come on, Gus, don’t be a frozen coffee waffle.  Besides, that meeting isn’t for another two hours.” 

“How did you know that?” Gus demanded, his eyes darting towards his friend before returning to the road.  The light they were waiting at was still red, but it always paid to be cautious. “Did you hack into my schedule again?  You better not have changed anything.”

“Oh come on, Gus, you know you liked the Pineapple Teatime Hour,” Shawn answered, “And anyway, you have plenty of time.  Just pull over and we can say hi to Lassie real quick.”

“I’m not turning here, Shawn,” Gus answered, his tone resolute, “It takes over an hour to get to the company.  And since when do you want to see Lassiter over Juliet anyway?  What makes you think they’re even there?”

“Because Jules is at…I don’t know, I just…I saw a license plate?” Shawn answered, suddenly uncertain and fumbling to hide it, “And dude, who builds a pharmaceutical company out in the middle of nowhere?  It sounds like some kind of evil villain…drug…factory…place.”

“It’s called Pharmucorpus,” Gus answered.  And then, finally the light turned green.  He started to ease forward at the exact moment Shawn suddenly threw open his door.  Gus slammed on the brakes as Shawn hopped out.

“Thanks for the ride, I’ll find my own way!” he called as he slammed the door and took off running, ignoring Gus’s half outraged, half shocked cry behind him.  Gus didn’t move again until the cars behind him started to honk, still staring after where his friend was just sitting.

Shawn, meanwhile, jogged half a block to where the flashing lights had come from.  There were two cop cars and an ambulance surrounding an apartment complex.  Choosing not to think about the fact that he had just jumped out of a nearly moving vehicle (it would have been so much more awesome if Gus hadn’t braked, but then Gus would likely kill him afterwards in that case, if Shawn hadn’t killed himself), he turned all his energy towards the potential case.  The first person he ran into in the hallway was Buzz, luckily, so he had no difficulty walking straight into the crime scene.

There was no body but there was an outline; it looked like someone had died.  Lassiter was in the room, standing out of the way of the photographers, taking a statement from an old lady.  There was no sign of Jules.  Shawn didn’t know whether to think it awesome that he had called the situation so closely or a bit freaked out.

He took the moment before Lassiter noticed him to take in the scene, his eyes sweeping the room.  There wasn’t much; no sign of a struggle, no sign of a break in, not even blood.  It looked rather as though someone (male by the size of the outline) had simply collapsed.  The décor of the room suggested it to be a college student, so heart attack was unlikely.  Then his eyes fell upon the empty pill bottle, just seconds before it was picked up.  There was an immediate feeling in his stomach, like freefalling and not the fun, bungee jumping kind.  He took a step towards the bottle without even realizing it, even as it was being carried away.

“Spencer!” a voice cried behind him, breaking him out of…whatever it was he was in.  Shawn took a steadying breath then spun around with a look of happy surprise on his face.

“Lassie!” he cried, allowing the detective to half drag, half lead him out of the room, “Perfect!  I need a ride.”  Lassiter paused, his hand still clutched tightly around Shawn’s arm.  Then he continued, without bothering to answer, not letting go until they were outside.  Shawn stuck by his side anyway as the detective finished up with the scene, finally sliding into the passenger seat as Lassiter got into his car.  Lassiter sat back and turned his head to stare at him.

“Spencer,” he said at last, “Where’s Guster?”

“Meeting,” Shawn answered, “Ooh, can we run the sirens?”  At that Lassiter started the car, without the siren, and pulled away from the building.

Shawn didn’t know what to make of Lassiter half the time.  He was fun to annoy, but at the same time Shawn liked to think he was growing on the cop.  Gus once said he was like six-year-old, pulling on Lassie’s pigtails, to which so many jokes had popped into Shawn’s head at once that he had nearly choked on them.  And in the beginning Lassiter saw Shawn as a nuisance and Shawn knew it, but couldn’t help himself.  Anyone who disapproved of Shawn so much deserved what he got, anyway.  Lately, however, Lassiter had grown to tolerate him.  And if Shawn were really psychic, he would probably say that he sensed the cop had actually, in fact, grown a bit fond of him.  But of course Shawn wasn’t really psychic, so that was probably just wistful thinking.  Probably, Lassiter had just grown to accept that Shawn wasn’t going away.

Later, at the station, Shawn tried especially hard to remember how his non-real psychic feelings told him how fond Lassiter had grown while the cop was glaring in his direction.  To be fair, Shawn was throwing a wrench into said cop’s desire to wrap up what looked like an easy case.  In front of Chief Vick, no less, and probably loudly enough to be heard by half the cops outside her office.

“I’m sensing shaking,” Shawn cried, rocking his body as though in an earthquake, “Upset…unwell…unstable!  The victim was unstable!  Low, underground…depressed!  Depression pills!  He took pills!”

“Yes, we know,” Lassiter answered, “It’s a suicide.  Case closed.”

“Not suicide!” Shawn cried, more from the instinct to disagree than from any real insight.  Or so he would have said if he had to give an honest reason.  Yet still, he was missing something, they all were, he just couldn’t see it yet.  Sometimes that happened; he would see all the details and his subconscious would figure it while the rest of his brain was still struggling to keep up.  Chief Vick was starting to look impatient, he could tell even in the throes of his psychic act.  She tolerated his antics because he brought results, but she wasn’t going to tolerate much more if he couldn’t give her something to go on.

“The pills!  The empty bottle!” he cried, clutching his stomach reflexively, “The proof is in the bottle!”

“We know,” Lassiter said through clenched teeth, “The guy was depressed.  He overdosed.  End of story.”  Shawn shook his head; something wasn’t right here.  People overdosed on sleeping pills, or pain pills; but these were something else.  Anti-depressants, nothing he recognized but he could see the label clearly in his head, SSRI.  Then in his mind’s eye, something clicked on the label.

“The date!” he blurted out, “The date is old, old, the pills are old!  He didn’t overdose; he ran out!”  Finally he relaxed; he could tell by the chief’s expression that she was listening now.  Even Lassiter had a spark of intrigue though he hid it well.

Half an hour later Shawn’s ‘vision’ was confirmed.  Lassiter still felt the need to point out that just because the prescription was a month old didn’t mean the guy had been taking them regularly.  His argument was only half-hearted; he had recognized the look in the Chief’s eyes just as well as Shawn had.  She insisted an investigation take place.  Not that they could do much right that second; they had to wait on the autopsy to confirm the guy had been poisoned.  Shawn spent most of their ‘investigation’ time hanging out on Lassiter’s desk while the cop made a few phone calls.  This lasted for nearly a full hour until Lassiter’s growling started to be much less indulgent of Shawn’s fidgeting and leaning much closer towards homicidal.  Shawn decided it was a good time for a bathroom break.

On his way back he stopped by the break room in the hopes that a cup of coffee might smooth Lassiter’s mood.  And it very well might have if Shawn didn’t trip and dump said cup of coffee all over a passing cop.  Shawn might have felt sorry for the guy (that coffee had been hot) if he wasn’t fairly certain the thing he had tripped over was the officer’s foot. 

“Damn it, Psycho!” the cop growled, his hand grabbing Shawn’s shirt in an eerily similar manner to the incident the night before.  Speaking of which, there was Mike in the flesh, standing behind Coffee Cop and next to Officer Lawrence (or as Shawn liked to call him, Witch Hunter Law, one of the few officers in the precinct whose response to Shawn definitely fell within the category of hatred.  Or maybe fear; they guy did wear a silver cross in the same way most cops wore their guns and vests.)  The coffee ridden tripper, otherwise known as Truman, didn’t hate Shawn so much as think him a joke.  In other words, not Shawn’s favorite people to run into.  Time to defuse the situation with a quick apology.

“I’m sorry,” Shawn said, “Did you prefer the coffee with more sugar?  You’re looking a bit bitter.”  Or not defuse, sometimes Shawn’s mouth got a bit ahead of him when he started talking.  Before Shawn could attempt any more defusing, Truman was slamming him back hard into a wall.  His two buddies didn’t look inclined to help either of them, but Shawn knew if it came to a fight who they’d be backing. 

Of course, it didn’t come to a fight.  They were in the middle of a police station, not some dark back alley.  And suddenly Lassiter was right there, his stance intimidating despite the fact that Truman had a good six inches on the detective.

“What is going on here?” he asked, his voice a low growl.  Truman released Shawn and stepped back.  Shawn could see the uncertainty flickering across all three faces; they weren’t completely sure where Lassiter stood when it came to Shawn.  Truman’s face went back and forth between anxiety and anger, finally settling upon annoyance.

“He poured his coffee on me,” he said, motioning towards Shawn.

“He tripped me,” Shawn was quick to point out to Lassiter, “And technically it was your coffee I poured on him.”

“You tripped on your own two feet, Psycho,” Truman growled, “Or did the ‘spirits’ not show you my foot sticking out?”  Lassiter’s eyes narrowed.

“Those ‘spirits’ have helped to solve more cases in a month than most detectives manage in a year,” he growled.  Shawn watched in shock, not used to hearing that tone when it wasn’t directed towards himself for doing something stupid.  “Now, unless you want to be put on the graveyard shift for a month, filing paperwork, you will apologize to the spirits, shape up, and show a little respect for our Head Psychic Detective, do I make myself clear?”

Truman gritted his teeth, but managed to get out an acknowledgement.  The apology came more slowly and sounded more like a threat.  “I am sorry that my feet caused you to trip and that I upset the…spirits.”

“Apology accepted,” Shawn answered, “The spirits may be appeased by the sacrifice of pineapple before the altar of the coffee gods.”  Behind Truman, Witch Hunter Law crossed himself.  Shawn waited until he had turned away from them to break into a manic grin as he bounded after Lassiter.

“Ah, I knew you loved me.”

“Shut up, Spencer.  You’re still a pain in the ass,” Lassiter said, turning away before Shawn could attempt to initiate the totally awesome male bonding hug he had been planning.  “Now come on, we’re going to the pharmacy.”

“To get a pineapple to sacrifice at the altar?” Shawn asked, falling in step next to him and still grinning in a way he suspected was beginning to creep Lassiter out.

“No, wait, what?  Who gets pineapples at pharmacies?” Lassiter asked.  But when Shawn opened his mouth to answer, he held up a hand, “No, you know what?  I don’t want to know.  We’re going to the pharmacy of Greg Thomas.”  And when Shawn only stared at him blankly, he elaborated, “The guy who died.”

“Oh,” Shawn answered, and then, “Can I drive?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?  Pretty please with chocolate pony sprinkles and pineapple chunks?”

“No.”

“Run the siren?  Ooh, I know, I’ll wear your handcuffs and act like an insane, drug crazed lunatic while you sneak in the back to scope out the drug ring.”

“Get in.”

“I call shotgun!”

“Not if I shoot you first.”

“What?”

“I said, get in Spencer.”

He didn’t run the sirens this time either.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The trip to the pharmacy was blessedly short. From the corner of his eye, Shawn watched Lassiter turn a deeper and deeper shade of red (tinged slightly with green which just looked weird, like Christmas) with every inane comment Shawn came up with.  For some reason, Shawn couldn’t seem to stop talking; it was what he always did after stressful situations. Then Shawn turned to face Lassiter and wondered if he shouldn’t get his eyes checked; Lassie’s face was its regular shade.  In fact, he was showing no reaction to Shawn at all except for the slight tightening of his jaw.

“And that’s why Guster McGrumpypants doesn’t like clowns,” Shawn finished, before leaping out of the car and leaving Lassiter in relative peace.  At any rate, the detective was slow to follow.  Shawn was already in the store by the time he made it out of the car.  In fact, Shawn would have already gone in and come out (flourishing a pineapple to prove that the pharmacy carried them, and likely would have gotten accused of shoplifting in the process) if he hadn’t run into a familiar face.

“Jules!”

Lassiter heard the excited cry all the way from the parking lot.  He entered and found Shawn confronting a very pathetic looking Juliet as he brandished his fruit.

“O’Hara,” he greeted her with a nod, and then, “You look awful.”

“Thanks,” Juliet answered, rolling her eyes slightly.  Whatever either of the men might have said to that was interrupted by her coughing fit.  When she finally stopped coughing she managed to ask, “What are you doing here?”

“Drug trafficking,” Shawn answered instantly, “We hear all you need is a doctor’s note and they’ll give you the tambourine.”  She blinked at him, her understandable confusion further hindered by her head feeling like it was stuffed with cotton.

“You mean oranges?” she finally asked.

“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” he said in reply and then, as she continued to give him a blank look, “Puff the Magic Dragon?”

“We’re on a case,” Lassiter said, interrupting Shawn’s search for more song references, before he turned and strode towards the back of the store where the pharmacy counter was located.  Shawn followed with Jules, who it turned out still needed to pick up her own prescription.  Feeling too out of it to make her escape, she suffered in confused silence through Shawn’s speech on the healing power of pineapples.  His pineapple had somehow come to be in her hands while he carried her basket containing a box of Kleenex and some canned soup.

“SBPD,” Lassiter said to the girl behind the counter, waving his badge with one hand while pulling out some papers with his other.  Shawn led Juliet to the other line, still engrossed in his talk and only half listening to what Lassiter was saying.

“Hey, Shawn!” the counter guy cried as they approached, “You here for your usual?”  Shawn froze.  Lassiter and Juliet both turned to look at him.

“Ah,” Shawn said with a weak grin, “No, no, Gus isn’t making his rounds today.”  Peripherally he could still feel Jules and Lassiter looking at him and his cheeks began to burn.  Counter guy just looked confused.  Of all the pharmacies their dead guy could have gone to, he had to go to the one Shawn frequented.

“Gus?” the guy asked, his forehead wrinkling as he tried to figure out what Shawn was saying, “Oh, you mean your friend who always remembers your prescription when you forget it,” said counter guy(to be renamed in Shawn’s head as Billy Babble Mouth who Can’t Take a Freakin’ Hint) while he typed something into his little computer, “Fluoxetine right?  But I thought you said that guy’s name was Captain Keith?  Anyway…huh, you should still be good for another couple of weeks…you haven’t been overdoing it, have you; you don’t want to overdose.”  His look of concern might have been endearing if Shawn hadn’t wanted to strangle him.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ted!” Shawn cried nervously, “I’ve learned my lesson, say no to drugs, no means no, Dare, um…”  he leaned in towards counter guy (Ted, according to Shawn’s memory and his name tag) and in a stage whisper said, “Dude, there’s a cop standing right there.”  For apparently having such a sharp memory when it came to Shawn’s drug habits, Ted was a little slow on the uptake.  He looked confused again.  Lassiter raised an eyebrow.

“You would rather we think you’re doing drugs than think you take medication?” the detective asked in disbelief.  Still shaking his head slightly the cop turned back to the woman to request information.  Meanwhile, counter guy Ted finally caught on and looked apologetic.

“Hey, man, sorry, I didn’t realize you…”

“Just forget it,” Shawn said, cutting him off and trying to get back a semblance of happy normalcy, “I’m actually here for this lovely lady.”  Said lovely lady was still staring at Shawn as though he had grown a second head.  Shawn was hoping it was her sickness to blame and not that she was still in shock over the revelation.  It took a slight nudge from Shawn for her to set down the pineapple she was still clutching and fumble for the necessary information to pick up her prescription.

“I don’t think we’re allowed to give you that information,” the woman was telling Lassiter in the meantime, “It would break confidentiality.”

“And you’re doing such a good job of that so far,” Lassiter answered, his eyes darting briefly towards Ted, “But these papers here…”

“Achoo!” Juliet sneezed, dropping her purse while simultaneously knocking over the pineapple.  Shawn scrambled to get it for her while Lassiter explained to the woman exactly why she had to tell him and what could happen to her if she didn’t comply.

“Come on, the guy is dead,” Shawn thought to add from his position hunched over on the floor, “How much privacy does he need?”  In the end, the woman caved.

“He’s in that clinical trial,” she said after pulling dead guy’s name up, “The company sent us a bunch of pre-packed bottles for it, already sealed.”

“And what company is that?” Shawn asked impatiently while she printed off the documents.  She glanced at her screen.

“Pharmucorpus,” she answered, “Here, let me see if I can find an address…”

Shawn stopped listening.  He already knew the address anyway; it was emblazoned in his memory from Gus’s computer.  Suddenly realizing Lassiter and the lady were staring at him, he blurted out, “Gus, his meeting, he’s there right now.”  The printout finished and Lassiter reached out to grab it, nodding for them to go.  Lost in thought about Gus, Shawn actually forgot Jules was there and started to leave.

“But you always look so happy!” Juliet blurted out.  Once again, Shawn froze.  He didn’t know quite how to answer that, and on top of his sudden worry for Gus any excuses that came to mind suddenly seemed pointless and irrelevant.

“Yeah, well, that’s what the happy pills are there for, right?” he said instead, and continued walking.  Juliet watched him walk for half a second with a stricken expression before jumping to catch up.

“I didn’t mean…it’s not that there’s anything wrong with that!” she cried, concerned she had hurt his feelings.  Shawn didn’t stop walking.  Still striding forward he twisted his body to give her a reassuring grin, calling over his shoulder, “Just don’t blab it around, it might ruin my cool psycho image…or strengthen as the case may be.  And just remember, Jules, think un-sick thoughts!  Trust the pineapple!”  And he walked out the door.  Lassiter put a hand on Juliet’s shoulder to stop her from dashing after him.

“Let him go, O’Hara,” he said, “He’ll be fine.  I think he’s just worried about the case.”  And then he left too, leaving her standing in the middle of the store with her basket, prescription, and a pineapple.  One thing was very clear; she chose the wrong day to get sick.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Shawn was uncharacteristically silent when Lassiter reached the car.  He was holding his cell phone and leaning against the passenger door, his expression unreadable.  The detective hesitated, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.  He unlocked the doors.

Lassiter took the time to call in the information they had gathered, getting the chief’s go-ahead and a clear set of directions to reach Pharmucorpus before he started driving.  By this point, Shawn’s unnatural silence was starting to creep Lassiter out just as much as his chatter had annoyed him.

“You know, there’s no reason to think Guster is in danger there,” he finally said, the silence getting to him.  Shawn blinked, then visibly shook himself into something better resembling his normal personality.

“What?  No, of course he’s fine,” he agreed, “Talking to some geek in glasses right now.  It’s not like they hand out samples for him to try, cool though that would normally be.  Still…better safe than sorry right?  Come on, pedal to the metal, Lassie, start the sirens!”  Lassiter ignored the suggestion, still eyeing the self-proclaimed psychic with something approaching concern.

Shawn, meanwhile, was still thinking about his daydream that Lassiter’s voice had broken.  It was a reassuring daydream; Gus had been doing his pharmaceutical routine trying to charm some old guy, perfectly safe and happy.  A little too happy, in fact, for being so far away from Shawn at the moment.  Shawn mentally drew a pair of horns and a mustache on his friend for that.  Now the silence was back, broken only by the intermittent bursts from the radio, but he couldn’t quite find the safe, happy Gus daydream from before.  Shawn held onto the silence for about as long as he was able, before his need to fill it overwhelmed him.

“I’m not depressed.”  Huh…not what he was intending to say.  Apparently being trapped in a silent car for too long had him babbling worse than Counterboy Ted.  But it was on his mind, and once he had forcibly convinced himself not to worry about Gus, his medication immediately took Gus’s place.  Lassiter glanced at him, not that Shawn could see that because he had immediately turned his head away after his comment.  He could still see colors out of the corner of his eye, which he was trying hard not to think about.  He also didn’t think about his feeling that Lassiter was concerned and fond and…whatever else the colors meant because that was just his wistful thoughts wanting Lassiter to like him and had nothing to do with reality.  And he knew Lassiter was feeing awkward and uncertain of how to respond only because he knew Lassiter, and that’s how the man always reacted when social interaction called for some kind of compassionate response.

“I never thought you were,” Lassiter settled on, somewhat truthfully.  He had always thought there was something up with Spencer, though, and somehow it hadn’t actually surprised him that the man was on medication.  He was more surprised that Spencer actually accepted the medication, in fact, though probably Guster had something to do with that.  At any rate, Lassiter had no idea what Fluoxetine was prescribed for anyway, except for some vague association with drug trafficking in schools.

“It’s the psychic episodes,” Shawn said suddenly, frantically trying to turn it all into a joke, “They can be intense, overwhelming, sometimes panic inducing!”  And if it had been just about anyone but Lassiter in the car with him, he might have been believed.  Well, anyone except for Lassiter or Gus.  Or his father.  Or possibly Chief Vick. Actually, the only people who would believe him were probably people who didn’t really know him at all.  In fact, Shawn was surprised Lassiter didn’t immediately call him on it, refuting his claim to be a psychic.  That’s what Shawn had wanted him to do, because if he did that then Shawn could argue, and Lassiter could get annoyed and argue back, and then all the important bits would be lost in ridiculous words.  But Lassiter didn’t say anything, which was just plain unnerving, and Shawn lapsed into silence again.

“You know,” Lassiter said suddenly, his eyes darting towards the other man then back to the road, “It isn’t exactly uncommon for cops to need some help.  I was on stuff for a while, you know…during the separation.”  Shawn nodded, hesitantly, then broke out into a grin.

“Aw, Lassie, are we bonding over drugs now?” he asked.  To which Lassiter gave him a look.  But after that the atmosphere in the car was much less awkward, and Shawn found a topic to babble on that Lassiter, for reasons he didn’t understand himself, found less annoying than usual.  Perhaps the silence had been getting to him as well.

It didn’t take a full hour to reach Pharmucorpus, no matter what Gus had said.  It had been long enough that Shawn wondered if Gus might not already be out of his meeting and on his way home.  He decided it was unlikely though.  In his mind he had Daydream Gus talking to yet another doctor, a young woman this time, still happy and safe.  Shawn still felt uneasy, though, urging Lassiter to hurry it up while he circled for a parking place.

“Come on, just park in front!” Shawn cried, “What’re they gonna do, give a cop a ticket?”  Lassiter did as he had done for most of the ride and ignored him.

By the time they walked in to confront the receptionist, Shawn was ready to storm the building.  When Lassiter began to question her on who was in charge of the medical study, Shawn confidently recited, “Dr. Chinerro, room 603.”  (The name came from his memory of the bottle’s label, the floor from a chart to the right of the receptionist’s head).  The woman behind the desk looked startled, quickly confirming his words.  “Psychic,” Shawn explained briefly, “Thank you, Mrs. Nunez (nametag, surprising and a bit disturbing how many people that trick could impress), we’ll just be going up.”  For once Lassiter followed his lead as they strode for the elevators.

“Hey, wait!” she called after them, getting over her surprise, “Dr. Chinerro is in a meeting with an important representative, you can’t just…”

“Police investigation!” Lassiter called, holding up his badge, and the elevator doors closed.  Shawn broke into a grin.

“Lassie, that was so cool!” he exclaimed, lifting a fist for a bump.  Lassiter glanced at him, ignoring the fist, and said, “From now on, Spencer, please leave the talking to me.”  Shawn might have been insulted if he didn’t notice the hint of a smile around the detective’s eyes and decided to let it go.

“So…” Shawn said as the elevator climbed towards the sixth floor, “What’s our plan anyway?  Are we taking this guy in for questioning?  Ooh, can I use the handcuffs?”

“We don’t even know this was a murder,” Lassiter answered, shifting slightly away from Shawn and his attempts to reach for his handcuffs, “We don’t even know for sure he died of an overdose.”

“Aw, come on, Lassie,” Shawn cried, “You aren’t still siding with the suicide theory, are you?  Even with the mysterious study and headquarters out in the middle of nowhere like a modern day fortress of doom?”  The doors dinged and slid open to reveal a man waiting, holding a briefcase.

“Sorry,” he said, “I meant to press the down…Shawn?!”

“Gus!” Shawn cried, as the doors closed in Gus’s face, “Don’t eat the candy!”  Gus finally reacted by reaching for the doors, but was a second too late.  A second later, they came to a stop on the sixth floor.

“See, your friend is fine,” Lassiter said, “Now will you stop hopping around like a six-year-old who needs to pee?”

“I knew he was fine,” Shawn answered, “I told you, I psychically…” Then the stairwell doors burst open and Gus ran out, breathing heavily and glaring towards his friend.

“Shawn!” he cried, between gasps for breath, “What are you doing here?  And why did you bring Detective Lassiter?  Please tell me he didn’t do something to get us arrested.”  This last sentence was directed towards Lassiter.

“Well, technically he brought me here,” Shawn pointed out, “It being his car at all.  And of course we aren’t being arrested!  We’re here to arrest your client!”

“No one is arresting anybody,” Lassiter interrupted, “We’re just here to ask a few questions, that’s all.” 

“We’re here to solve a murder,” Shawn interjected, “But Detective Doubt here thinks it’s a suicide.  Like anyone tries to commit suicide on anti-depressants…delicious though the irony would be.”

“Actually, Shawn,” Gus said, unable to resist imparting knowledge, especially when it came to his own profession, “While accidental overdose is less likely to have severe ramifications with modern anti-depressants, such as the SSRI’s favored by this particular company, a large enough number could lead to Serotonin Syndrome.  This is a…”

“Yeah, yeah, which is why you like to count my happy pills every morning,” Shawn interrupted him, rolling his eyes, “And the guy did overdose…because he was murdered.”  He drew out the word ‘murder’ to make it both dramatic and show how obvious it should be.

“I do not count your pills every morning,” Gus answered, “And if I did it would be to make sure you had taken them; even you aren’t stupid enough to overdose…” And then, remembering where they were he glanced around for Lassiter.

“Don’t worry, he already knows,” Shawn said, rolling his eyes to totally hide the fact that this bothered him.  But Gus continued to look around, still frowning slightly.

“Forgetting for the moment that you refused to even let your mom know, and she’s a licensed psychiatrist,” he said, “Where is Lassiter?”  Shawn startled for a moment, his carefully lined up arguments for his case forgotten as he looked around the hall.

“Huh…” Shawn said at last, “My psychic senses tell me his is interviewing Dr. Chinerro in room 603.  And that he totally ditched us!”  And with an abrupt turn he went after his absent partner.  Gus hesitated for maybe half a second before he followed.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Dr. Chinerro turned out to be an average looking man in his early thirties. Shawn immediately noted and dismissed nearly ten different facts about the man judging from his build (not muscular, but not the body of someone who spent his entire life holed up behind a computer, despite his pale skin), his demeanor (nervous, yet superior; from the expression on Lassiter’s face he was probably a jerk), and his office (neither meticulously tidy nor extraordinarily messy; diplomas on proud display on the wall and on his desk pictures of him shaking hands with other doctors, presumably important people. No tell on any hobbies to speak of; tennis ball in corner probably used as a thinking tool rather than for sport). Shawn also noted, in a completely irrelevant but totally condemning way, that the guy had a goatee. That was so classic villain.

Nothing that Shawn saw indicated that this man might be a murderer. Nor was there any real reason for Shawn to instantly dislike him. Of course, his dad always did say a good cop went with his instincts (after repeatedly telling Shawn to ‘look at the facts’), but this instant dislike that had welled up in Shawn seemed to go a bit beyond that.

“And these are two of our civilian consultants,” Lassiter said during the span of time it took for Shawn to process his first impressions, “Mr. Spencer, Guster, this is Dr. Chinerro.”

“Mr. Guster,” the doctor said, his eyes sliding right over Shawn, “We met earlier, didn’t we? You didn’t mention anything about running an investigation.”

“Ah, no no no,” Shawn said, when Gus just stood there with a slightly panicked expression, “I believe you are referring to his twin brother, Burton Guster. This is Magic Head Guster, otherwise known as the Gus Man.”

“We’re identical twins,” Gus added, before shooting Shawn a glare of death. Dr. Chinerro looked suitably confused, his eyes lingering over Gus’s briefcase and business attire.

“Their mom likes to dress them alike; she thinks it’s cute,” Shawn continued quickly, “Burt is fine with it but Gus Man longs for individuality.”

“Anyway,” Lassiter said, in a tone that clearly wanted silence from the two of them, “I believe you were about to print off your study patient list.”

“Ah yes,” the doctor said, wandering towards his computer, “I still don’t see what you guys want with it; I have all the proper forms filled out for the test and so far my drug seems to be doing its job.”

“Your drug?” Shawn asked, raising an eyebrow with interest.

“Dr. Chinerro and his assistant are the ones who created the drug for the trial,” Gus supplied helpfully and slightly reverently. The doctor affected a modest expression that just oozed with secret pride even as he continued to work on his computer.

“It was really a team effort, of course,” he said, “But it was my breakthrough five years ago that got…oh here we are, trial patient’s list.” Shawn frowned, staring hard at him. The man was lying about something. Not the list, which was already printing (either Lassiter was very convincing before they came in or the guy was very trusting in handing away sensitive, private information to strangers; from the way the doctor himself screamed ‘dishonesty’, Shawn was guessing the former). The doctor was being up front, yet he was lying.

“So…Chinny…” Shawn began, to which Gus elbowed him and murmured, “Chinerro.” The doctor gave Shawn a look that would have been a glare if the doctor obviously hadn’t felt glaring to be beneath him. Shawn ignored both Gus and the look and forged on saying, “How did you choose the participants in the study?”

“I didn’t,” he answered briefly; “I set up the criteria of the study of course, and worked in promotions but my real talents lay in the lab. I had the interns do the grunt work, though of course I reviewed their work and have been following the results. But from my end they’re all just a stream of numbers.”

“Right,” Shawn answered, staring at him, “So it was a group effort.” There was only a hint of sarcasm in that statement, but it still earned another snob glare.

“Excuse me,” Dr. Chinerro said, “But what exactly do you do with the police?”

“All right,” Lassiter said quickly, before Shawn could start his psychic routine, “I think we have everything we need here; thank you for your time.” He snatched up the printed list and started herding the other two towards the door.

“Of course, I’m always willing to help,” Dr. Chinerro said in a tone that sounded anything but sincere. He seemed just as eager to see them leave. At the last second, Shawn pushed himself past Lassiter in the doorway.

“Head psychic,” he called, “We’ll be seeing you.” Then Lassiter yanked him out by the back of his shirt and closed the door.

The walk to the elevators was somewhat cold in atmosphere; neither Gus nor Lassiter appeared to be impressed by Shawn at the moment. The coldness lasted only until they reached the elevator and another doctor of a much prettier persuasion joined them in their wait. She was young for a doctor, probably around the same age as Dr. Chinerro in fact, and if it weren’t for her lab coat or the nametag saying ‘Dr. Heathers’ she might have been taken for someone’s secretary; a stereotypical brainless blond. As it was, she was obviously not brainless. At second glance she wasn’t even well manicured and her hair, though blond, was looking a bit frazzled. Despite this, she immediately gained the attention of all three men, though with different results. Gus attempted his flirty, manly persona while Lassiter looked slightly uncomfortable and made sure to keep space between them but was unable to help checking her out from the corner of his eye. Shawn, under normal circumstances would have gotten a good look at her, analyzed her marketability (no wedding ring or telling finger marks of a recently removed band; from the lab coat and lack of care in her appearance, probably a workaholic, no current boyfriend). Under normal circumstances he would be vying for her attention, holding a hopefully discreet secret battle behind her back with Gus for the chance at first go. But these weren’t normal circumstances. Because this was the first time Shawn had seen this woman, and yet it wasn’t. Because she was the daydream doctor that daydream Gus had been talking. And no matter how much he told himself it was just a coincidence, it had really freaked him out.

“Dr. Heathers,” Gus said, ignorant of everything running through Shawn’s mind.

“Mr. Guster,” she answered (and that just freaked Shawn out a bit more, because Gus wasn’t wearing a name tag. They _had_ met before.). She smiled towards Gus in a way that was both genuinely friendly and slightly absent, her thoughts probably intent on where she was going (workaholic, Shawn confirmed to himself, despite the way his head was buzzing in something approaching shock). Her eyes slid towards him and Lassiter, her expression still friendly.

“Sorry,” Gus said, always the gentleman, “This is my friend Shawn Spencer and Detective Carlton Lassiter.” Lassiter jerked his head towards her before he turned his head back to the elevator doors. Now Gus finally noticed that Shawn was acting odd because he was still staring at the doctor, not flirting or showing off or whatever it was he usually did when meeting new people, especially pretty people. Gus nudged him, giving him his ‘quit acting weird and start using those manners I know you have’ look. Shawn blinked then turned his head a fraction of a second before the elevator finally binged. Daydream Doctor didn’t follow them in; apparently she wanted to go up, not down. Gus told her goodbye, attempting for something that was a mix between professional and flirtatious, before the doors slid closed.

“Shawn!” he cried as soon as they started moving, “What is up with you today?”

“Ever have a feeling of déjà vu?” Shawn asked. Which was what this had to be, really. She just happened to look similar to his daydream doctor; she fit a certain type and he had probably morphed his memory after the fact to match her. Which would be more convincing if he didn’t happen to have a photographic memory. And he was still seeing colors out of the corner of his eyes. Gus was annoyed and concerned and confused. But Shawn knew that because that was how default Gus was. Gus always worried about things and he always got annoyed and often Shawn confused him. And he knew that Lassiter was…on the phone. Shawn must have really been zoned out to have missed that. Shawn was somewhat surprised, actually, that he got reception there. Abruptly the detective snapped his phone shut. The elevator landed on the first floor.

“You’re right,” he said to Shawn, “It wasn’t suicide.” But before Shawn could begin his ‘I told you so’ happy dance (albeit an uncharacteristically mild happy dance in light of his preoccupation with colors and daydreams), Lassiter continued to say, “It was accidental death. Our guy combined his meds with too much booze and weed.”

“What?” Shawn asked as they strode for the parking lot, “But what about that Sara Tony Syndrome thing?”

“It’s Serotonin Syndrome,” Gus said, “And you can’t actually test for it...”

“See!” Shawn cried, “This is just what the murderer wants us to think, that it wasn’t an overdose!”

“It was a likely overdose,” Lassiter corrected him, “In combination with other drugs that lead to his death.” Gus split up from them then, as they passed his company car while Shawn continued to try and argue his case with Lassiter. Gus watched them leave.

In the police car, Shawn finally gave up his halfhearted argument that the guy was murdered. Even if he was. He was still preoccupied by daydream girl turning out to be real. His first instinct was still to call it a coincidence and let it go. But he wouldn’t be who he was, who his father made him to be, if he was able to just let things go. Perhaps he had seen a picture of her when he was rooting around Gus’s computer? He tried to remember, he should be able to remember, but all that gave him was a headache. Lassiter didn’t try to talk to him on the ride back, enjoying the silence. And if he was the slightest bit concerned towards Shawn, it only showed in his colors from the corner of Shawn’s eye.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

If there was anyone who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not psychic, it was Shawn. He understood this in the same way that magicians knew there was no such thing as magic and con artists knew that the deal was always too good to be true. Shawn knew. On the other hand, his only other explanation was that he had gone insane.

Lassiter dropped Shawn off at the Psych office. Shawn thanked him absently for the ride and didn’t even notice Lassiter’s startled expression, though he felt his concern boring into his back as he left the car. Gus wasn’t back yet, which was just as well because Shawn had enough difficulties inside his own head without adding to the drama. Besides, Shawn wanted to figure this out himself. Either his pretending to be a psychic had gotten so good that he was fooling himself, he had actually developed psychic powers, or he was going insane. After contemplating his options for a few minutes, he suddenly leaped up and got his white board.

He made three lines and labeled each with an option, but in code because there was no way he was going to get caught contemplating his own sanity. Option one he labeled with a magician because it stood for his psychic-ness being a self-deluding trick. Option two he wavered between it being a pineapple (because even he could see how sweet it would be to really be psychic; on the other hand it was freaking him out enough to not really feel it was a pineapple occasion) and being a Gus (because Gus was the one who believed in curses and ghosts and he would totally get on board the psychic theory, at least if Shawn could convince him this wasn’t another joke). For insanity, he drew little stick figure of the evil police men (with a cup of coffee pouring over their heads, so the stick figures wouldn’t get confused with Lassiter or Jules, which was a bit silly really because the only one who needed to interpret the board was Shawn, and he knew what he meant.) In the end, the pictures probably served more as a distraction because he could just as easily have written T (for trick), P (for psychic), and I (for insane), and still no one would have known what he meant. Realizing this, he suddenly decided the middle column should definitely be pineapple, because it started with P.

Finally, with his pictures completed, he couldn’t put off the purpose of the exercise any longer. The first column was easy. If it was true, then he had seen the woman’s picture somewhere; either on Gus’s computer or a website or he had just seen her around. On the other hand, his memory was good enough that he should remember seeing such a picture. Under the first column he drew one smiley face and one frowny face. Then there were the colors to consider, and the emotions coming off people. The colors and emotions were connected, but not dependent upon one another; he wasn’t really sure what was up with that. He considered eye problems and that his ability to read people had simply improved. That gained more smiley faces, and then another frowny face because the colors only showed up around people and that just didn’t point towards eye problems. Then the coffee covered policemen got a smiley face because if it was just part of his observation skills then he was deluding himself. And another because seeing things was a bit weird.

He contemplated the middle column for a long time. He had to add smiley faces for having real daydream/visions and for observations that he didn’t remember actually observing. He couldn’t think of a reason to add a frowny face but added one anyway because for some reason it made him feel better. He looked over his board for a good two minutes, before finally dropping the pen in defeat. The board was useless. The only way he could be sure whether he really was a psychic or not was to experiment. He knew that from the beginning, of course. But drawing faces and pictures and making up codes was much more fun and less frightening than admitting everything he thought he knew about himself was wrong. Might be wrong.

He sat back, tossed a ball up and caught it a few times, then leaped up and went back to the board. With one bold line he crossed out the insanity column. The daydream woman had been real, no matter what other tricks his mind was playing on him. He’d like to say beyond a shadow of a doubt that the colors and emotions were real too, but he had no way to check. But there were moments, little moments that he had dismissed at the time, when he had said something or made an observation that he shouldn’t have been able to. A guy had threatened him because he came up with ‘dolphins’, and the word had just popped out without any observation to back it. And even before that, there were little things. Grabbing for the phone a second before it rang, guessing with better than usual accuracy over who was on the line or at the door. They were all little things until it added up to a daydream that wasn’t a daydream. And it couldn’t be insanity if it was real. So take that, psycho cops.

An hour later, Gus burst through the door, a feeling rolling off him in waves that Shawn couldn’t quite identify. He seemed upset, at least until he got into the office and had a chance to look around. Then he abruptly changed to confused, maybe concerned.

“Have you gone insane?” he demanded, looking at the various charts Shawn had drawn up and hung around the office.

“Nope, ruled that out ages ago,” Shawn answered as he contemplated his latest chart, one made up of colors. Red so far had a stick figure of Lassiter, an angry face, and a concerned face. Orange and yellow were together. They had a stick figure of Gus and Jules. Then below that was pure yellow, which he had an exclamation mark and a question mark next to. Brown was next, with a sleeping face and a frowny face. Green had another Lassiter stick figure. Blue had a Jules stick figure. White had a question mark.

“Shawn,” Gus demanded, “What are you doing? Is this related to the case?” He walked around the room, taking in the white board and pieces of paper covered in cryptic lists like ‘daydream w., dolphin, sick J. At the bottom and underlined was ‘Not Suicide’.

“Yes,” Shawn answered, and then, “No. I don’t know, I’m just…trying to figure it out.”

“By turning our office into a scene from ‘Beautiful Mind’?” Gus demanded, staring at his friend. He knew how Shawn worked on cases, and while it occasionally helped to see things outside of his head, that usually didn’t involve papering the office with cryptic notes. On the other hand, he knew Shawn well enough to take just about anything he did in stride. “Whatever, Shawn,” Gus finally said, remembering that he was upset with his friend, “I want to know what you and Lassiter were doing at Pharmucorpus.”

“You know what we were doing,” Shawn answered, “Looking for Dr. Evil to prove he killed that guy.”

“And you had to do this while I was there?” Gus demanded, “You and your new buddy couldn’t have waited until I left? You could have cost me a deal!”

“Oh don’t be…new buddy?” Shawn answered, finally looking up from his color chart.

“Don’t change the subject,” Gus said with a glare, “And what was up with how you treated Henrietta?”

“Who?” Shawn asked, confused, while he contemplated the colors that he was slowly noticing even when he looked at his friend dead on. The usual orange yellow was interlaced with a dull, swamp green.

“Dr. Heathers,” Gus answered, still sounding annoyed, except his colors didn’t match. Most people who got annoyed with Shawn tended to turn a stormy red.

“Dadydream lady,” Shawn said out loud when he finally placed who he was talking about, earning a weird look from Gus.

“Whatever Shawn,” he said at last, “I still have work to do.” And he pointedly sat at his desk behind his computer with every intention of ignoring his friend. Shawn didn’t even notice the cold treatment, too entranced with figuring out the color mystery. A moment later, Gus jumped up again, suddenly remembering yet another grievance.

“And what was with that stunt you pulled this morning?” he demanded, “Jumping out of a moving car? I’m not going to drive you around if you’re going to be doing that.”

“The car wasn’t moving,” Shawn reminded him, “And you’re the one who wouldn’t let me ride my motorcycle.”

“Because you left your helmet at home!” Gus cried, his tone carrying all the fury of their argument earlier that morning.

“No I didn’t,” Shawn answered absently, still absorbed in his charts, “I just hid it so you’d come with me for tacos.” As Gus’s colors changed yet again, definitely leaning towards red, it occurred to Shawn he probably shouldn’t have mentioned that. Gus had been adamant about staying to prepare for his meeting, Shawn recalled, though to be fair he hadn’t put up much of a fight once Shawn started wheedling him to come along. The hidden helmet was only to quicken the deal. Totally worth it, even if Gus did lecture him half the ride. At least it had been worth it at the time. Now, Gus sat in brooding silence. Shawn considered saying something to break the silence, but his developing headache welcomed the quiet. He put his chart aside and closed his eyes. Let Gus brood. Let the charts and the psychic-ness sort itself out. He was going to take a nap.

If he had known what he was about to dream, he might have reconsidered.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

For a dead guy, Greg Thomas looked remarkably vibrant and alive.  Shawn had always half imagined that if he really saw spirits they’d either be all pale and see through or they’d be all gruesome and zombie-like, taking on the form of their now decomposing body.  This spirit was neither.  He was sitting on Shawn’s chair, really sitting with an obvious weight to his body that sank the cushions, while he watched Shawn sleep.  In fact, the only tip off that he wasn’t a live person was the fact that Shawn, too, was watching himself sleep, and that just shouldn’t be possible.  That and the ghost was surrounded by colors like fire, spiraling right through his flesh in a vibrant pattern that burned Shawn’s eyes.  The really weird part was that Shawn didn’t have to ask who he was.  Not there, standing outside of himself; he just knew.  Freaking out didn’t even begin to cover what he was feeling right then.

“So…” Shawn said, “Is this the part where Shyamalan Night jumps out and yells cut?”

“I was murdered,” Greg Thomas said, his voice hallow and angry and scared.  He didn’t really seem to be speaking to Shawn, at least not the awake Shawn.  Shawn turned his head to look at his own body lying on the couch, then turned away again to stare at the specter. 

“I should not have died,” the ghost said. 

“Yeah,” Shawn agreed, not sure of what to say.  He wasn’t supposed to really see spirits, not even dream spirits.  He wasn’t supposed to be standing next to his own body.  Mentally Shawn added another smiley face to the pineapple column.  Suddenly the ghost man turned his burning eyes to look directly into Shawn’s.  A very real, very strong hand reached out to grasp Shawn’s wrist, the fiery colors flickering over Shawn’s skin like burning embers.  He tried to pull back, gasping sharply and Greg Thomas howled.

 “Find my murderer!”

And then Shawn was gasping, sitting up on the couch and shivering violently.  It took a moment to get himself under control as he looked around for the ghost, massaging his wrist.  He looked at his wrist but there wasn’t a mark on it.  It had been a dream.  Had to of been.  So why did he still feel Greg Thomas in the room?

Then Gus ran into the room, concern flickering through his usual orange yellow aura.  Shawn stared.  Gus had an aura; there was no use pretending the colors he had been seeing were anything else.  And Shawn was wide awake, and he wasn’t looking from the corner of his eyes and he still saw it.

“What happened?” Gus demanded, taking in Shawn’s pale, fearful expression, “Nightmare?”

Shawn opened his mouth, ready to offer some quip that would relieve the sick tension that coursed through him and hopefully dispel the waves of concern coming off his friend.  But the words wouldn’t come.

“I see dead people,” he finally managed to get out, and then he giggled.  This did absolutely nothing to dispel concern on his behalf.

“Really, Shawn, what is up with you today?” Gus demanded.

“Really,” Shawn answered, “I really really see dead people.  He wants me to find his murderer.”  Gus began to relax, sure that he understood now what was going on.

“That was a dream, Shawn,” Gus said, “Have you been watching ‘The Sixth Sense’ again?”

“No,” Shawn cried, and then, “Maybe, well, but that’s completely irrelevant.”  But he didn’t go on.  He didn’t talk about the colors or the feelings or the daydream woman.  Because explaining it would be admitting it, out loud, to a witness.  And if Gus didn’t believe him, even with the mounting proof, then that would mean Shawn really was crazy.  He’d rather be a secret psychic than a crazy out of the closet.  Gus didn’t want to hear it anyway; he was giving him that look, the one that said he was on to Shawn and he knew better than whatever story Shawn was trying to pull.  And ninety-nine percent of the time, Gus would be right, even if Shawn would never admit that.  Slowly, Shawn breathed out.  Then he jumped up.  And the phone rang.

“Lassie!” Shawn cried as he picked up, “What have you got?”

“How did you…never mind,” came the predictable response, “What we’ve got are more bodies.  The chief wants you to come in.”

“On our way,” Shawn answered.  He spun around to face Gus as he hanged up.  “That was Lassie admitting I was right all along and to say he needs me.  Coming?”

“He said all that, did he?” Gus asked with a snort of disbelief.

“More or less, I may have been paraphrasing slightly,” Shawn admitted, “But I so called the murder thing.  They have more bodies.”

“And that’s a reason to rejoice?” Gus asked, “We aren’t going to have to see them, are we?”  To his surprise, Shawn suddenly blanched.  Because one ghost coming into his dreams was more than enough.  And what if the psychic-ness got worse?  The colors had gotten stronger; what if he saw ghosts in the daytime too?

“Shawn?” Gus asked, a definite note of concern in his voice, “You sure you okay?  I’m usually the one who…well…you know…”

“Runs at the sight of blood?” Shawn asked, carefully putting back his façade of carelessness.  It worked; Gus scowled.  “And to answer your question, no.  We’re going to the station.  So come on.”

“So now you want to ride with me?” Gus said, the odd green once again flickering across his colors.  Shawn stared at him, confused.  “Well,” his friend continued, “I’m not going.  It just so happens I have a date.”

“A date?  With who?” Shawn demanded, still confused over his friend’s behavior.  What good were psychic powers if he still couldn’t get a read on Gus?  “And how will I get to the station?  I don’t have my helmet, remember?”

“You said you did,” Gus answered, frowning, “You said you hid it.”

“I did?” Shawn asked, trying to sound both confused and innocent.  Gus didn’t buy it.

“Take your bike, Shawn,” he said, “Or call ‘Lassie’ for a ride.”

“I dunno…wouldn’t that make me Timmy?” Shawn asked, “Come on, Gus, what if I need Magic Head in the case?”

“I told you not to call me that,” Gus answered, “And I already told you, I have a date.”  Shawn turned away, his eyes flickering towards the door.  Someone knocked.  He didn’t get a sense for who was on the other side, just an anxiety he couldn’t quite explain.  But then, most of Gus’s dates made him feel that way; insecure, like Gus was going to choose some woman over him.  So with a vague and slightly guilty hope that he could manage to scare away the date, Shawn opened the door.  Only to freeze.

Standing waiting was the daydream woman. 


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

She had cleaned up a bit since Shawn had last seen her; her hair styled and some jewelry and  make up added though her nails still looked a bit rough.  Shawn couldn’t see an aura around her, not really, just a sense of nervousness like any young woman might feel on a first date.  That and a sense that Shawn was starting to creep her out with his wide eyed staring.  He really should stop doing that.

“Dr Heathers,” Gus said from behind Shawn before elbowing his friend discreetly but sharply in the ribs, “Come inside.”

“I told you, call me Henri,” the woman answered, smiling shyly as Gus managed to pull Shawn out of the way and let her into the office.

“You poor girl,” Shawn said, quite without meaning to, when she said her name.  Gus glared at Shawn over his dates head but Henri laughed politely.

“I suppose I was really the lucky one,” she said, “My sister got stuck with Heather.  Heather Heathers.”  It was Gus’s turn to laugh but Shawn merely blinked.  He got a flash in his mind’s eye of a girl who could have been taken for a teenage Henri and then a deep chasm of darkness.  Before he could begin to explore what that could mean, the vision was gone.  For that brief moment, Henri’s aura flared around her in a psychotic clash of deep pink and murky green with occasional bursts of pure black.  Then the colors faded into a pale pink and were gone.  All of this, the vision and the colors, couldn’t have lasted more than half a second, gone in the space of time it took Shawn to blink his eyes.

“And this is Shawn,” Gus said, indicating towards his friend while continuing to order Shawn with his eyes to act like a normal human being.

“Shawn Spencer,” Shawn said, “Psychic detective.”  He started to offer his hand but pulled back at the last second, suddenly afraid to touch her.

“Psychic?” she asked, raising an eyebrow and managing to sound skeptical and interested at the same time.

“Head psychic with the SBPD,” Shawn answered, frowning slightly at the way her level of anxiety had risen.

“What can you tell about me, head psychic?” she asked, her tone still skeptical.  Shawn hesitated.

“Really,” Gus said, jumping in, “Shawn was just going.”  He jerked his head towards the door behind Henri’s back.

“No I wasn’t,” Shawn answered, suddenly nervous about leaving them alone together.  He didn’t know why.  Henri didn’t feel dangerous, just…there was something disconcerting about meeting the daydream woman.

“Yes you were,” Gus answered, annoyance tingeing his colors in bright bursts, “Dead bodies, remember?”

“So, they’re dead,” Shawn answered, “Not like they’ll get any deader.  And I lost my helmet.”

“How does a psychic lose his helmet?” Henri asked, still looking at Shawn despite the way Gus was now pulling gently at her elbow.

“It’s not so much lost as out of reach,” Shawn answered, adopting his mystical ‘seeing into the far distance’ pose by habit.

“Well, we’re leaving,” Gus said, now herding his date towards the door.

“Wait, wait, I’m getting something!” Shawn cried, slightly desperate to keep them, “I’m seeing…ferns…no, flowers…no…heather!  It’s Heather, she’s…she wants…she’s so sad…and angry…she’s so angry with you, Doctor.  And she’s so sad.”  Henri went white, her eyes wide.  Shawn had a headache.  He shouldn’t have done that; he should have done what he always did and spout stuff he got from just looking at her.

“And you!” Shawn continued, ignoring the glare of death his friend was sending him, “for shame letting your place get to be such a mess; the psych office is not a make out point.”

“Since when?” Gus blurted out, “It’s your fault anyway, I told you to clean up after the blender incident.”  And then remembering their company he tried for a flirtatious smile.  “Come along, Henri, ignore him.”  Henri nodded, her expression still odd, and followed him out the door.  Shawn considered following them, but Gus was mad enough and he didn’t really think Henri was going to hurt him.  And if these psychic powers were in fact somewhat totally real, shouldn’t he know?  So he let them go and then went to fetch his helmet from its resting place under the bathroom sink and took off for the station.

The meeting was already going on by the time he got there.  There is Lassiter, of course, and the chief.  Jules is still absent.  Buzz is there as well, but as he’s carrying in some coffee Shawn doesn’t know if he’s actually helping in the case or just in general.  He smiles when he sees Shawn and brandishes an unexpected pineapple smoothie for him.  A few more officers are hanging around as well, including, unfortunately, Shawn’s least favorite duo, the witch hunter and coffee man (otherwise known as Lawrence and Truman).  At least Dolphin Mike didn’t seem to have joined them.

Shawn also noticed that the aura thing seemed to be a bit selective.  He could see Lassiter’s colors fairly clearly, Chief Vic’s less so and Buzz still less.  Everyone else he could still get an impression from the corner of his eyes or if he really, really concentrated.  Unfortunately, he learned this bit while Lassiter was talking and missed most of what he was saying.

“Anything to add, Spencer?” the detective finished with.  At Shawn’s blank look, Lassiter rolled his eyes and growled slightly in frustration.

“Just tell us if you ‘psychically deduced’ anything from our stay at pharmucorpus.”

“Right!” Shawn cried, just as though he knew exactly what the detective meant all along.  From nearby, he heard someone whisper, ‘yeah, tell us, psycho.’  From the way both the chief’s and Lassiter’s eyes narrowed, the person hadn’t whispered softly enough.  Shawn ignored them anyway, squinching up his face as he tried to recall details.  His eyes flew open and he stared into an empty corner, as though he could see something.

“He’s here!” he cried dramatically, staring hard into the corner.  Several detectives inched away from it, including Truman despite the way he rolled his eyes.  “Greg Thomas…what?  You want to say…you were murdered?”

“Spencer!” Lassiter cried, clearly telling him to get to the point.  Shawn squinched up his face again, holding his hands to his head in his classic psychic pose.

“Dr Chinny is hiding…he is…he’s hiding…but he isn’t a killer…” Shawn continued, trying to remember exactly what impressions he had gotten in that office.  Dr Chinerro had felt a bit slimy, evil in a small sort of way, but nothing so dark had tainted his soul as murder.  He opened his eyes again and started to shiver, his eyes drawn back towards the corner.  It wasn’t so empty anymore.

He didn’t see Greg Thomas, not like he had in his dream as a flesh and blood specter.  He couldn’t say what he saw exactly; he just knew the corner was filling with…people.  Still shivering he decided to go with it.

“Greg Thomas!” he cried, staring into the not quite empty corner, “Rrr….ra…row….Rose, no…Rosy?  No…Rosa!”  Suddenly, his mind flashed back to the list of names Dr. Chinerro had printed for Lassiter.  He had only gotten a brief glimpse but it had been enough to etch it into his memory.  He scanned the list in his mind, and instantly several names stuck out from the rest as though they had been highlighted.  “No..not Rosa…Rory Eccelton, Dan Baker, Emmanuel Gonzales.”

“Those are…how did you…” Lassiter began, staring at him.  Shawn continued to shiver, almost violently.  The spirits weren’t talking to him, not really, they weren’t even doing anything.  But they were there, listening, nudging him.  From the way Lassiter and the chief were staring at him, they apparently hadn’t gotten to the part where they revealed the newly deceased.  But the spirits wanted something more from him; the list stayed unwavering in his mind as though someone had thrust it before him and yelled ‘look!’.  So he looked, scanning it in his head, trying to find what they wanted him to find.  He almost missed it.  Michael Henderson didn’t mean anything to him.  But the moment he read it something hitched on the name, and briefly, very briefly, he saw the face of Mike.  His name was followed by a stream of numbers, a few dates, the letter p, and some notes.  But whatever it all meant, all Shawn really understood was that Mike was in the study.

Shawn’s eyes flew open to see everyone still staring at him.  “Detective Dolphin!” he shouted.  They continued to stare.  “I mean, Officer Mike Henderson!” he shouted, his eyes darting around as though he expected the man to suddenly pop up when he hadn’t been there before.

“Listen, psycho, if you think Mike’s a killer…” Truman began, sounding threatening and Shawn resisted the urge to strangle him in frustration.

“No, not the killer, the victim!” he cried, “He’s on the list!  The study list!”  For a moment everyone just stood there.  Then Lassiter’s eyes widened in sudden understanding and things started to move quicker.  Two officers were sent out, one to find Mike and the other to call an ambulance, just in case.  Before the officers reached the door, there was the sound of a crash and then a cry for help from beyond the door.  Mike Henderson had just collapsed.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Shawn had a headache.  And he was missing something.  The spirits were still there, hanging out in the corner, but they weren’t talking.  Shawn was just glad they remained invisible; no matter how cool it had looked in the movies he was surprised to discover he had absolutely no interest in actually seeing dead people.  Not even perfectly normal yet still somehow utterly terrifying ones.  At least if he couldn’t really see them, he could pretend they weren’t there and that there wasn’t something he was missing from the list that continued to dance behind his eyes, taunting him.  If only he didn’t have that headache.

After Mike was taken away in the ambulance, alive still, luckily, and being treated for serotonin poisoning, the meeting had continued with more urgency.  Shawn also noticed that he was getting even more glances than usual, and not the ‘wow, he’s so awesome’ kind.  Some were concerned, some disconcerted, a few were glares (notably from Truman and Lawrence, who seemed to have gotten it into their heads that Shawn was somehow responsible for Mike’s collapse).  Buzz was refreshingly normal, his eyes holding a mixture of concern (Shawn did look a bit pale) and awe at being in the presence of a real psychic.

Shawn, for once, was being good and doing his best to pay attention to what Lassiter was saying.  At least he was trying to be good.  His headache, the un-empty corner, the flashes of color from the corner of his eyes, it was all beginning to build up on him.  And on top of all of that, he was still a bit worried about Gus and his date, wishing his friend was there, now.  And that he had already told Gus about being a psychic and that Gus had believed him and done a bit of research and now would know exactly how to help him make the colors SHUT UP!  Oh…oops…was that out loud?  People were staring again.

Now Shawn felt a bit silly because of all the things to shout that made the least sense.  If anything, the spirits had been too quiet; that was the problem.  Not that he wanted to talk to them, not really, but if he was a psychic it would be helpful if he could actually use his awesome powers to help solve a case.  And they were trying to tell him something, something very important, and he was missing it.  Lassiter eventually started talking again, about the latest victims and possible things they had in common besides being in the antidepressant study.  Shawn couldn’t see his colors anymore, but there was a sort of white aura around everyone, and he wondered if that meant anything before his headache suddenly leaped up and tried to stab his eyeballs out and everything went silent and white.

Then he was on a sofa in a quiet room and the chief and Lassiter were both kneeling next to him with Buzz hovering in the background.  They didn’t have any colors, not even the white auras from before, and for a second Shawn wondered if his powers were gone.

“Wow,” Shawn said, “I had the strangest dream.  And you, and you, and you were all there...”

Chief Vic’s face got that pinched look it often got when dealing with Shawn and Buzz looked confused.  Lassiter, surprisingly, actually looked a bit amused.  But he felt a bit worried, and for a moment Shawn thought he saw a flicker of color behind his head.

“Spencer,” Lassiter said, his tone holding a seriousness to it that begged for Shawn to pay attention, “I need to ask you something.  It’s very important.  It’s about the…pineapple at the pharmacy.”  Shawn stared at him, wondering if the psycho insanity was contagious. Lassiter’s eyes darted momentarily in the direction of the chief and back again.  The way she was staring at Lassiter, she obviously shared Shawn’s concerns about her head detective.  Lassiter licked his lips and tried again, “You know, at the pharmacy where…Ted…gives you pineapples…we’re a bit concerned about…food poisoning.”

And then it clicked and Shawn understood.  With all this fuss about poison pills going around, and then Shawn had obviously collapsed and Lassiter now knew he took pills too…Shawn was a bit surprised, actually, that he hadn’t woken up in an ambulance.  And Lassiter was actually trying to keep his secret for him.  That was…well sweet came to mind but that was so completely the wrong adjective to describe Lassiter that Shawn’s mind instantly rejected it and inserted ‘Gus-like’ as a good alternative.  Chief Vic gave Lassiter a look of incredulity before turning back to Shawn.

“Just tell me this, Spencer,” she said, “When’s the last time you ate?”  Shawn blinked.

“Erm…” he began.  His first thought was that it must have been dinner…but he couldn’t remember dinner.  He remembered dashing off to Pharmucorpus around four, and then at the psych office he was freaking out about his new super powers, and then the freaky nap of doom, and then the call and Gus’s date and getting to the station around eight… “Eleven-ish?” he finally supplied.

“Eleven?” Lassiter cried, annoyance sharpening his words, “It’s nearly ten!”

“Ah…no wonder I’m feeling a bit peckish,” Shawn answered, offering a weak grin that in no way staved off the concerned anger that was rolling off the detective in tidal waves.  But he honestly hadn’t felt hungry, not until right at that moment when his stomach suddenly remembered that it had been thoroughly neglected and chose that moment to make itself known.

“And I had a smoothie…er…when I got here,” Shawn suddenly remembered, except he hadn’t really drunken much of it, because he had been feeling a bit queasy, probably thanks to the headache or because he hadn’t eaten. 

“McNab, get something for Spencer to eat,” the chief ordered, and Buzz headed out the door.

“Are you sure it wasn’t the pineapple?” Lassiter demanded, his voice a bit abrupt to help hide the fact that he was actually showing concern.

“I think I’d have noticed if I was getting pineapples from…an evil fortress of doom,” Shawn answered, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.  Chief Vic continued to stare at both of them, but visibly decided not to ask.

“Well, if you need anything, Spencer, please ask for it before you pass out on us,” the chief finally said, and then, “Detective.  Let’s get back to our case.”  She headed for the door and Lassiter reluctantly began to follow her.  Shawn sat up and started to follow as well, before she spun around and gave him a stern look that froze him mid-stand.  “You, stay, eat.  Then go home and get some rest; I don’t want to see you again until tomorrow morning.  Or I’m calling your father.”  Shawn fell back onto the sofa with a huff and watched them walk out the door.

“What is this?  High school?  Behave, Shawn, or I’ll call your daddy on you,” Shawn muttered darkly to the closed door, but he did sit and obediently wait for his food to be brought in.  Buzz didn’t take long before carrying in a bag of takeout and a second smoothie.

“Do you need anything else?” he asked earnestly as Shawn set about devouring his meal, “You were out of it for nearly ten whole minutes.  We were all really worried.”

Shawn waved off his worries, trying to say something about the spirits having gotten to him for a moment back there but he was fine now.  Shawn didn’t know how much of it Buzz understood as Shawn had his mouth full while he spoke, but it must have satisfied him some because Buzz left after that, apologizing that he couldn’t stay.

Shawn, finally alone, polished off his meal and began on his smoothie while enjoying the absence of otherworldly presence in his head.  There were no colors, no headaches, no spirits; for the moment in the absence of people there wasn’t even the feelings that had been bombarding him earlier.  But before he could properly enjoy the emptiness, something dark and cold crept up his spine followed by a presence like a black smell that made him choke on his smoothie.  He looked up at the door a second before it opened, half expecting to see an ax wielding murderer to leap into the room.  It was Officers Truman and Lawrence.

“What did you say to her, Psycho?” Truman growled at him.  Shawn stared at him blankly, clutching his smoothie defensively.  “She took us off the case!” the officer clarified, aggression filling the small room in suffocating clouds.

“How did you know about Mike?” Lawrence added, his own anger tainted by a deep, loathing fear, “Did you use your voodoo witchcraft on him?”  At his side, Truman shook his head slightly at his superstitious friend but he didn’t verbally contradict him.  Shawn, however, couldn’t hold in a bark of laughter.  That seemed to enrage both men as the aggression level increased, making Shawn’s stomach roll, his just eaten meal threatening to make itself known.  Suddenly the small room was too small, their hatred too potent; he felt trapped.  But they were blocking the door.  Nervously, he tried for it anyway, moving towards them and hoping they’d actually let him through.

“Where do you think you’re going, Psycho?” Truman demanded, pushing against him and nearly knocking him over a small table.

“What are you going to do?  Beat me up?” Shawn snapped, his own annoyance at war with his fear in the wake of their hatred.  He had never actually felt hatred before, dark aggression so potent that the feelings themselves left Shawn feeling weak and shaky before they even touched him.  “You think the chief would let you keep your badges if you tried anything?” he finished.

“You know what I think?” Lawrence asked, “I think you have them all under your witchy power.  Well you don’t have us fooled, Satan Spawn.  We know you did something to Mike.”

“You’d have to be able to speak, before you could tattle on us,” Truman added viciously.  Shawn swallowed, trying to convince himself that there was no way they’d really hurt him.  They were bullies and they were angry, but they weren’t so stupid to try something in the middle of a police station.  They felt tainted, but not evil; they weren’t about to kill him so they couldn’t risk hurting him and getting told on later.  They were just trying to scare him.  Surely.

Unless the anger and hatred and aggression overrode their common sense. 

Shawn took another step back, nearly falling over the table before he managed to stumble around it. They followed, one circling around either end like predators closing on their prey.  Their emotions attacked him, dark and vicious, and suddenly his stomach rebelled and he couldn’t hold it in.  He couldn’t resist aiming for the two officers.  His legs gave way after he threw up and he fell back onto the couch as they gave out cries of disgust.  It occurred to Shawn that that wasn’t his best idea ever as the aggression in the room nearly tripled, two pairs of hands coming for him from above and fisting hold of his shirt, lifting him from his seated position and pushing him hard against the wall.

His head connected with a sharp crack and a sharp pain shot through his back as they held him in place.  Thanks to the position of the sofa behind his legs he couldn’t even try to find purchase to stand on his own, even if he could get his head to stop ringing long enough to try it.

Shawn knew, even with the headache ringing in his head, that he had pushed them well beyond common sense and their ability to hold back.  He was about to die.

Then the door burst open, the new presence carrying its own aura of love that broke through the dark emotions like a beacon of piercing light.

“Shawn!” Gus cried from the doorway, “Lassiter called and said…what’s going on here?”

The fists that had been holding Shawn up vanished and Shawn fell with an oof back on the sofa.  Gus’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared as the two officers quickly retreated passed him and out the door, only Truman pausing briefly to give Shawn a warning look.  But Gus let them escape without comment, for now, his eyes on Shawn though his nose continued to wrinkle slightly at the stench of vomit.

“Shawn?” Gus asked, moving slowly towards his friend, his tone demanding explanations.

“Hey, Gus,” Shawn answered, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his head, “How was your date?”

“Cut short,” Gus answered abruptly, “I had to leave her at the Psych Office when I got this call about a friend of mine fainting.”  Shawn frowned.

“You left the daydream lady alone in our office?” he asked.

“That’s not the point!” Gus exploded, “I want to know what…daydream lady?  Just how hard did you hit your head?”  He reached his hand around to feel for himself but Shawn swatted his hand away.  Then Shawn took a deep breath, bracing himself.

“Gus?  You know how we tell everyone that I’m a psychic?” he asked.  Gus nodded, eying him with a concerned but slightly suspicious look.  “Well,” Shawn continued, “That may not have been entirely, a little, um, well…not a complete lie.”

“Huh?” Gus managed to articulate, his brain not managing to follow his (he suspected) concussed friend’s words.  Shawn took another deep breath before finally managing to blurt out what he was trying to say.

“I’m psychic.”


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Shawn’s big revelation didn’t have quite the effect he was going for.  Gus didn’t stare in disbelief.  He didn’t roll his eyes, or start to laugh either.  He didn’t even nod sagely and say something like, ‘Of course you are, Shawn, I knew all along,’ which was what Shawn was half hoping for even if he knew it was a long shot.  For some reason, Gus didn’t react at all to his words.  Instead he went off on some weird and completely unrelated tangent about police brutality and stupid people who forget to eat while radiating worry like a beacon, dispelling the last of the darkness the two officers had brought.

“You’re not listening!” Shawn cried when Gus dragged him out of the small room to see the chief, mumbling something about stopping by the hospital and all in all not bringing the conversation in a direction Shawn cared for, “I really am psychic.”

“I know you are Shawn,” he answered, “We all do, remember?”  Then Shawn looked around, noticed several people staring at them (what was with the stares, lately?) and promptly decided the middle of the police station was not the best place for this conversation.  So of course, he wanted to leave at once, which turned out to be the opposite of Gus’s plans which involved (in bursts of anger that made Shawn’s stomach roll as they ran over his skin) informing the chief and possibly Jules and Lassiter, at length, about the situation he had walked in on.

“Look, they were just trying to scare me,” Shawn said, trying to head Gus off, “I don’t need to run to Mommy for…”

“No Shawn,” Gus practically growled as he continued to drag Shawn along bodily, “People who are trying to scare you don’t throw you into a wall.  People who are just trying to scare you don’t…chief!  We want to report a crime!”

“No we don’t,” Shawn quickly said, finally collecting his wits enough to squirm out of Gus’s grasp and try to drag his friend back in the other direction.  Unfortunately Shawn was at a disadvantage both from the way his head was still ringing and from the sudden assault of color and emotion that threatened to send him keeling over once again.  His grasp on Gus quickly went from pulling at his friend to clinging to him so he could stay upright.

And the really scary part about that was, the only person in the room with him was Gus.  As it turned out, the chief wasn’t in her office.

“Shawn?  Shawn!” Gus cried, sounding alarmed.

“Sorry, Gus,” Shawn answered, still clinging tightly, “Little busy being psychic, here.”

“Shawn,” Gus growled, “If this is one of your games…”

“Not playing,” Shawn answered, only managing not to throw up because he already had, “Not fun, either.  Could you tone your colors down?  They’re giving me a headache.”

“That’s it,” Gus cried, and abruptly turned and once again started dragging Shawn after him, this time in the direction of the parking lot.  Shawn didn’t even need to be psychic to foresee wasting the rest of the night away in some hospital waiting room.

“Wait, no, Gus!” Shawn cried, “I just need…sleep!  That’s it!”  Gus didn’t say anything more until he had Shawn buckled into his seat and had started the car.

“Gus, listen,” Shawn tried again, “Look, I know you’re upset, but this is important!  I’m a psychic.”

“No you’re not, Shawn,” Gus answered sternly, free to speak now that they were away from the station.  Shawn also found the psychic storm had calmed a bit, either because he really was tired or possibly because he wasn’t touching Gus anymore.  Mentally, Shawn added psychic powers to his list of things that ought to come with an instruction manual.  A big thick manual that Gus could obsessively read and then spout out information from at the slightest prompt.

“Yes I am!” Shawn insisted, “I even see spirits!  Well, one spirit, but I felt others!”

“You’re concussed, Shawn,” Gus answered abruptly, his stubbornness filling the car like stones.

“Come on, Gus, this is why I didn’t tell you at first,” Shawn cried, doing his best to come up with something that would convince his friend, “I mean, come on!  I was acting weird long before Trippin’ Truman and Witch Hunter came into it!”  Gus didn’t answer.  “Look!” Shawn cried, “Remember back in the office when I was acting all weird about your date?  And then I talked about her dead sister?  Where do you think that came from?  I’m psychic!”

“Her sister isn’t dead, Shawn,” Gus answered.

“I saw her before I saw her,” Shawn continued, ignoring Gus’s big flaw in Shawn’s reveal, “In a daydream, I saw you talking to her and then we got to the Doom Fortress and she was real!  And I can see colors around everyone; well, not everyone, but you’re usually orange and yellow but sometimes you go all green or red when you’re angry.”

“You see auras,” Gus asked, his voice flat as he gripped the wheel tightly.

“Er…I guess?” Shawn answered, “I don’t know; I just know I see colors.  And feel them.”

“And feel them,” Gus repeated.  He still didn’t believe Shawn, Shawn could tell.

“I can prove it!” Shawn cried desperately; he so did not want to spend his night in some emergency room for a non-existent concussion.  I mean, honestly, was he the type to downplay war wounds?  Okay, so maybe there was that one time…but who wants to go to the hospital if they can avoid it?  Gus obviously didn’t agree.

“How?” Gus asked, “How can you prove it?  I know how you roll, Shawn; you won’t fool me.”

“Oh, come on!” Shawn cried, “I’m so good at being a fake that you won’t believe me when its real?  Come on, just a simple test.  If I fail, I’ll drive me to the hospital myself.”

“No you won’t, Shawn,” Gus practically growled through clinched teeth.  But he did divert the car towards the psych office.  Not because he was giving in, as he informed Shawn, but because he wanted to make sure his date got out alright.  He did kind of leave her suddenly to go get Shawn.  Which reminded him to lecture on the importance of eating.

“Can we NOT talk about food?” Shawn asked, still feeling a bit queasy, despite the emptiness of his stomach.

“Aha!” Gus cried, “Another sign of a concussion!”

“I was feeling queasy before I hit my head,” Shawn pointed out, “In fact, it kind of preceded the entire trip to the wall.”

When they got to the Psych Office, Shawn was practically out of his seat before they stopped moving.  He knew that once he was out of the car, Gus had a much smaller chance of dragging him anywhere Shawn didn’t want to go.

Henri Heathers was long gone, though Shawn still felt an echo of her presence.  It was vaguely disturbing the way it permeated the office, tainting the purer essence of Shawn and Gus that normally saturated the place. 

“Stay here, Shawn, and close your eyes,” Gus said suddenly, shoving Shawn to face the door.

“What?” Shawn cried, annoyed, because he had half been planning to crash on the couch for the night; it wouldn’t be the first time he had slept over at the Psych Office.  He had, in fact, considered closing his apartment, if it weren’t for the fact that bringing a date home to an office space, no matter how cool the office, was not really conductive towards romance.

“You want to prove to me you’re psychic?” Gus demanded, “Then let’s prove it.  Don’t peak, Shawn.”

“What is this, hide and go seek?” Shawn asked, “Should I count to ten?”  Gus didn’t answer.  Shawn heard him walking around the office, tracking his footsteps and his actions with his ears.  It was an automatic response to his father’s training and slightly annoying when it forced him to concentrate through his growing headache.  Gus opened drawers and closed them, shifted papers, moved sofa cushions around, opened doors.  He had some idea of what Shawn was capable of and so made sure to leave as few clues as possible to what he was doing.  Finally, he stood in front of Shawn again, confident even Shawn wouldn’t be able to guess his way out of this.

“Alright, Shawn,” he said, “I’ve hidden something.  Tell me what and where.”

“What?” Shawn cried, “I tell you I see colors and you want to play hide and seek with objects?”

“Come on, Shawn, you want to prove it to me?  So prove it.  What did I hide, and where?”  Shawn sighed, but obediently closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.  He didn’t know what he was doing.  He hadn’t actually tried to use his powers yet; mostly they had just been thrust upon him and he had gone along with it.  He didn’t even know if he could find objects like that.  With nothing else to go on, his tired brain returned to his training.  The object would be small and easy for Gus to come across.  It would be in one of the places Gus had passed in is walk around.  That didn’t narrow things down much; there were any number of small objects he could have grabbed, and he had walked through the entire office.

“See!” Gus cried when Shawn made no move, not even his usual fake flailings, “You can’t…”

“Shhhh!” Shawn cried, “I need to concentrate.”  And the test was completely unfair but if Shawn was going to be psychic, then he was really going to _be_ psychic and Gus was going to believe him.  So…how did he see colors or feelings in the first place?  How had he started to see dead people?  The last was easy; he was asleep.  And he had done some research on psychics, no matter what Gus thought that he just made things up as he went along based off of various  movies.  And yeah, most of his research was with movies; but he had done some internet searches.  And made some new friends.  And most of those sites all talked a lot about meditation, and altered states of mind.  And if that’s what it took to convince Gus, then he would just have to try it.  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let out a mystical sounding ohm.

“Shawn, what are you doing?” Gus demanded.

“Contacting the spirits,” Shawn answered, still in the same tone of voice.  This was easy; he did this every day for the police.  So what if it was real now; maybe that was just how Shawn’s mind worked.  And as weird and unlikely as it was; faking his way along was working.  Because something was speaking to Shawn.

He didn’t know if it was a spirit; he didn’t even know if there were actual words or if it was just more feelings.  But something was telling him something, and with a non-existent voice that sounded just like Gus.

“Your phone!” Shawn cried out, opening his eyes to look upon his startled best friend, “In the sofa.  In the sofa?  How did you…oh, in the sofa cushions!  That makes more sense…”

“How did you?” Gus demanded, still staring, and Shawn resisted the urge to answer with his usual, ‘psychic,’ spiel.  Instead, he walked into the other room and sat down, waiting for Gus to follow.

“I am psychic,” he said, without any flair or melodrama whatsoever, “Or I’m insane.  But you know, after everything, I don’t think I am.”  And as Gus sat down, finally listening, really listening, Shawn told him.  From the beginning, without any enhancement, his voice totally serious.  Not because he didn’t want to insert excitement or melodrama or spice it up a bit, hiding the parts where he was scared or disconcerted and not totally up with suddenly finding his lies becoming true.  But because he knew this was how Gus needed to hear it; he needed one person to know the real story, and he needed that one person to believe.  He knew Gus would.  Eventually.  Once he was convinced it wasn’t a joke or a trick or a concussion, he would believe.  And then he’d do all in his power to find that instruction manual, whether it be from some new age faerie website or just trial and error observation.  Because that is what Gus did.

And Gus listened.  Then he pulled out the air mattress, because it was late and Shawn had already claimed the couch.  He didn’t say he believed, not yet.  But he didn’t talk about the hospital again, either.  At the very least, he seemed to believe that Shawn believed, and that was a good step in the right direction.  So they both slept on it, together.

Neither noticed that Gus’s cell still lay snuggly nestled between the couch cushions.  But that was alright because whenever Gus got around to panicking when he couldn’t find his phone, his newly psychic friend would be able to help him out.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Shawn’s dreams were growing crowded with the dead. He was in the Psych office again, but he wasn’t watching himself sleep. On the couch sat Greg Thomas, his piercing eyes glued on Shawn’s. Gus wasn’t there anymore, either; Shawn was alone with the dead.

There had to be at least ten specters hanging out around the room, with more coming in, filling the office to its capacity. And all of them stared and stared at Shawn with intense eyes. Shawn had already backed into a corner but they were crowding closer, their colors swirling chaotically, until he found himself hunched over, his eyes shut tight, but the colors burned still through the darkness.

And then suddenly he was alone, the colors gone. He opened his eyes onto a black void filled with…something. He couldn’t see it, or hear it, but something was there, creeping in the shadows.

“Shawn,” a voice whispered, and Shawn whirled around but no one was there but the shadows. “Shawn,” it whispered again, “Tell her…tell her…I’m sorry.” Shawn continued to turn about, his eyes searching wildly for a glimmer of light. And then he saw the eyes, the burning, furious eyes. “Find my murderer!” a voice roared like thunder. And Shawn fell back, into the darkness, and landed with a harsh thud on the floor.

His heart still hammering furiously in his chest, Shawn looked about wildly, blinking his eyes against the sudden return of sight. He was on the floor next to the couch. The dead were gone.

“Shawn?” a voice asked and Shawn jumped, swinging about to find the voice only to see Gus standing in the doorway. “Did you fall off the couch?”

“No!” Shawn cried, slowly pulling himself up to sitting position while trying to untangle his limbs from the deathtrap of a blanket, “Maybe…It was the spirits!”

“Whatever, Shawn,” Gus answered, and he started to turn away.

“Wait! Gus!” Shawn cried, suddenly remembering the talk the night before that had preceded the dream, “I was dreaming about the spirits again!”

Gus stared at him skeptically, still not quite ready to be drawn in to Shawn’s latest craziness, particularly now in the light of day. The skepticism grated against Shawn’s nerves and it was far too early in the morning for Shawn to deal with it. He considered letting Gus leave just so he could have a bit of peace.

“The chief called,” Gus said, once again turning to leave, but he came back shortly with a couple of cups of coffee, handing one to Shawn, “She wants us to come in.”

“And I suppose you have some important work to do that means you can’t take me,” Shawn mumbled sleepily as he accepted the coffee.

“You tell me,” Gus answered, his tone just the slightest bit smug, “You’re the psychic.” Shawn sighed but obligingly reached out a hand to place over Gus’s head, taking on his psychic pose. He wasn’t, however, quite ready for the actual maelstrom of colors and feelings that intensified into a fiery storm and was actually relieved that Gus quickly ducked away, glaring slightly.

“You don’t have work, for once; you’re actually looking forward to working with me,” Shawn said, shaking his hand slightly, “And you want me to stop messing with your head.” Gus stared at him for a moment.

“You could be psychic,” Gus said, “Or you could have just deduced that it’s Saturday. I never like you messing with my head. And I am not looking forward to working with you.”

“Dude, you so are!” Shawn cried, “The colors don’t lie!” Gus left again.

They didn’t actually get to the station for another hour, mostly because Shawn was finally feeling hungry and insisted on stopping for waffles. It also gave Shawn more time to discretely get over the nightmare and Gus more time to come up with what they should do about those two vindictive officers.

“I’m telling you, we don’t need the chief on this,” Shawn continued to insist, unsure himself why he was being so adamant. Maybe it had something to do with that voice in his head that sounding disturbingly like his father, telling him to fight his own battles. “Can’t we just deal with it like we did with Larry the Barbarian?”

“Oh, right, good plan,” Gus answered sarcastically, “So we should have you almost get hit by their car in front of your father and have them hauled away for attempted murder.”

“What? No!” Shawn cried, “I meant the part before that where we put the pink die in his hair gel and then slipped him that exploding milk! And he wasn’t trying to hit me! I mean, dude, he was going, like five miles an hour and screaming; there was plenty of time for me to hop out of the way.”

“Where you tripped over the curb, sprained your wrist, and bled all over Debbie Anderson.”

“And totally got a date out of it,” Shawn reminded his friend.

“Forget it, Shawn,” Gus answered, “This isn’t some high school bully.”

“Fine, fine,” Shawn answered, knowing he wasn’t going to be able to convince Gus and so he went for delay tactics, “But not now. They have enough to worry about with the murderer. After the case.”

“Fine,” Gus agreed reluctantly, knowing how difficult it would be anyway without Shawn’s cooperation. Shawn started to stand, when Gus pulled out a pill bottle and shoved a couple of pills at him.

“See!” Shawn cried, “You are counting them every morning!”

“I was with you this morning,” Gus reminded him with an eye roll, “I would have seen if you had taken them.”

“Whatever,” Shawn answered, grabbing a glass of water and swallowing them down. “Let’s go find out who’s spiking the meds, then.”

“Hey!” Gus cried suddenly, staring at the bottle he had just gotten the pills out of, “You don’t think…?”

“Right, Gus,” Shawn answered, “Because I just forgot about entering some clinical trial and completely missed the fact that said trial is now under investigation. We better go get my stomach pumped right now!” Gus turned and left without a word. Five minutes later, they arrived at the station.

Lassiter was already interrogating some random Pharmucorpus employee with Jules looking in. She still looked a bit pale but much better than she had the day before.

“Jules!” Shawn cried from behind her, causing her to jump and spin around, one hand reaching automatically for her gun. She managed to collect herself before she actually drew it.

“Shawn!” she cried, swatting him, “Don’t do that!”

“So…what have we got?” he asked, giving her an apologetic grin. For one uneasy moment she just looked at him, an expression in her eyes that made Shawn nervous. He was almost certain she was going to bring up what had happened the day before at the pharmacy. She opened her mouth, hesitated at Shawn’s nervous expression, and closed it again.

“So far?” she said instead, turning to look at a pile of folders in her arms, “Not much. I only just got briefed half an hour ago, so you probably know about as much as I do. All the victims were definitely in the clinical trial, all relatively healthy and all of them seemingly just dropped dead. But no one can figure out how the drugs were tampered with; security seems to be pretty tight there.”

“What about the pharmacies?” Gus asked, “Could someone be getting to it there?”

“We thought of that,” Jules answered, “But none of the victims have a pharmacy in common. We don’t think our killer could have gotten to all of them. It’s more likely the pills were tampered with at their source.”

Shawn nodded, when the world shifted suddenly and his queasiness returned full force. His head was ringing with a sudden assault of emotions that weren’t his own, and an uneasy, wretched shadow infiltrated the room.

“Shawn?” someone said, a hand grasping his elbow. His senses told him it was Juliet, the blue of her colors washing gently against him along with the familiar orange yellow.

“The killer is here,” Shawn said, grasping for a wall and feeling sick. He closed his eyes briefly, attempting to somehow mute down his psychic-ness for a moment. The spirits were back, trying to shout something at him but he didn’t understand. Then, amazingly, the colors and feelings and darkness actually receded and he managed to stand shakily by himself. He moved then, followed closely by Jules and Gus, and looked into a room where about five employees were waiting. They were all doctors. Doctor Chinerro was among them, as well as a couple of people Shawn didn’t know. Henri Heathers was there too.

And then the sickness was back, stronger than before, and Shawn bolted for a toilet, only barely making it in time. And the spirits were still screaming mutely from the corner of the room.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“Dr. Chinerro,” Lassiter threw out to the small group of detectives, “He has the most opportunity.  And he’s definitely hiding something.”

“No,” Shawn answered instantly from the chair is friends had practically forced him into after Shawn refused to go lie down.  He still looked a bit pale but was actually feeling a bit better.  The colors and emotions had yet to come back, leaving only an echo behind, those his stomach still threatened to attempt an evacuation from his body at any moment.

“Why not?” Lassiter demanded, turning to glare at Shawn but he couldn’t maintain any level of proper annoyance considering how sick Shawn looked. 

“He is hiding something,” Shawn agreed, “But he isn’t a murderer.”

“No one else had as much access to the drugs,” Lassiter insisted.

“And no one else has as much to lose if things go sour,” Shawn pointed out, feeling too sick to even attempt to mask logical deduction with psychic flares.  Besides, after his actual display earlier, faking it didn’t seem quite so fun anymore.  “He has no motive.”

“Well alright then, Spencer,” Lassiter said, folding his arms, “Who do you think it is?”  His tone was somewhat condescending but the faint echo of psychic vibes Shawn still felt told him the detective was actually curious.  Shawn hesitated.

“I don’t know,” he answered at last, “I just know he isn’t a killer.  A jerk, sure, but a killer, no.”  His headache was starting to return as well, and the colors in the room went up a notch.  He knew the reprieve was too good to last.  “What about that Heathers girl?” he suggested half-heartedly when still no one spoke, “She had a suspicious name.”

“My date did not kill anyone, Shawn,” Gus growled, “And having the name Henri is not a crime.”

“Well, it should be,” Shawn answered, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair.  He could actually feel the sudden concern for him from at least three different directions and he opened his eyes again in annoyance.

“Are you sure you need to be here, Spencer?” Lassiter asked, “You know we have managed to solve cases without you before.”

“Maybe you caught what I had,” Jules added.

“I’m fine,” Shawn answered.

In the end, they had to release everyone, even Dr. Chinerro, because they had no evidence to hold them with.  The police had so far determined that not all of the drugs were contaminated, and so it wasn’t an unexpected fatal side effect of the drug; some were exactly what they should be but some contained a bad mix.  Lassiter managed to hold one last interview with the doctor before they were forced to let him walk out.

“I told you, we guard those drugs like Fort Knox,” he said, when Lassiter once again asked about how the doctor thought the drugs might have become contaminated, “We turned over the videos of the labs, and all the paperwork.  If you ask me, you should be investigating the pharmacies.”

As Shawn watched, standing shakily at the observation window, he felt the nudge of the spirits again.  They were showing him the list, several names standing out as though highlighted.  Shawn didn’t know what it meant, what they were trying to tell him.  He felt sluggish and slow.  He knew he was missing something, something that should be obvious.  But it just wasn’t clicking.

“He so did it,” Gus said at his side.  Shawn rolled his eyes.

“Oh, Gus, not you too!” he cried, “I thought you liked the guy or something.  You always get that look in your eyes when I’d call him Dr. Chinny.”

“That’s because it’s annoying,” he answered, “And just look at him!  Don’t you…you know…sense anything?”  He said the last part cautiously, glancing at his friend.  There was still doubt there, that Shawn was really psychic.  Shawn could sense it, but Gus seemed willing to go along with it, for now.

“No,” Shawn answered, “Just the list.”

“What list?” Jules asked, glancing towards them.  Lassiter was prowling around the suspect now, saying something about numbers.

“The list of victims,” Shawn answered absently, his eyes on the interrogation, “I mean, participants.  Name, numbers, P.  I dunno what it means.”

“Look,” Dr. Chinerro said, sitting up rigidly in his chair, “Obviously someone is attempting to ruin my reputation by contaminating my research.  If you ask me, I’d say it was Dr. Heathers.  She’s always been jealous of my discovery.”

“He’s lying,” Shawn said instantly, not even needing to use his psychic powers; his observation training was enough.

“So he did do it,” Jules said, looking confused.

“No,” Shawn answered, “He’s lying about Dr. Heathers.”  This got more confusion from Juliet.  Gus just looked annoyed that everyone was determined to implement his new girlfriend.  Not that Shawn was really paying attention to their reactions; he was still concentrating on the list in his head.  It was important.  Finally, feeling frustrated, he turned his thoughts to the other names on the list; the ones that weren’t showing up in bold.  There didn’t seem to be much of a difference; just their name, the ever present numbers, and the letter D.  Then Shawn blinked.

“Hey,” he said, “If you were running some trial, what would you have D and P stand for?”

“I don’t know,” Gus answered, “Deranged and psychotic?”

“Dead and…perished?” Jules suggested.  Shawn and Gus stared at her for a moment, then Shawn suddenly moved away from the window, moving quickly.  A few seconds later, he walked in on the interrogation.

“Spencer!” Lassiter barked as Shawn’s presence disrupted his intense concentration upon the suspect.  Shawn could actually feel the break in the room’s energy and found it slightly disturbing; no wonder the detective always got so annoyed when Shawn interrupted him on cases.

“Excuse me,” Shawn said, before turning to face the doctor, “The list you gave us, the one with all the numbers…what does the P stand for?”

“What?” he asked, “I don’t know!  It’s probably shorthand for a type of subject.  We take all sorts of notes, to make sure nothing contaminates the trial.”

“D or P,” Shawn said, “Everyone is D or P.  It’s your trial, you said so yourself!  What would D or P stand for?”

“I don’t know!” the doctor cried, “Well…there were two study groups of course, it could mean that!”

“What two study groups?” Lassiter demanded, seizing upon this new information, “You didn’t mention there being two study groups.”

“There’s always two study groups in any drug trial,” Dr. Chinerro answered, his tone saying this should be so intrinsically obvious as to be unnecessary to mention, “The drug being tested, of course.  And a control group.”  And then, finally, it clicked in Shawn’s head.

“Placebo,” he said, “Drug or placebo.  No one messed with the drugs; it’s like he said, security like Fort Knox.  No, they got into the fakes; putting something real into them.  Who would bother to tightly secure sugar pills?”


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Despite Shawn’s big revelation, they still had to let Dr. Chinerro walk, along with all the other suspects.  They knew the how, but they still didn’t know the who and had little evidence to go on.  The placebos turned out to be held in a supply closet next to the labs.  Just about anyone could have had access to them; they were on the wrong side of the security doors to create much difficulty.  And the security camera was aimed in the wrong direction to cover it.  On the other hand, the drugs that had replaced the pills were not so easy to come by; the police hoped to find a lead that way.  But in the meantime, there wasn’t much that could be done.  Gus drove Shawn home.

Shawn slept through most of Sunday; being psychic turned out to be surprisingly exhaustive.  Gus showed up that evening with take out and managed, in a roundabout fashion, to bring up Shawn’s apparent new powers.  The vibes that Shawn was getting from his friend were confusing.  Gus wanted to believe Shawn, but he was afraid to.  He was afraid of it being another joke or a game; he was even a bit afraid there was some insanity involved.  That the pressure of his memory had finally gotten to him and this was Shawn’s way of escape.  So they talked.  And Gus tried to believe.  When he finally left, at around one in the morning, he was already mumbling to himself about research. 

The next morning Shawn finally woke up feeling refreshed.  The spirits had stopped nagging him once he made the placebo connection, his awesome (sometimes) powers felt more under control, and Gus was starting to really believe (quite apart from Shawn sensing it, Gus had left a note saying as much, below Shawn’s pills set aside as a reminder for Shawn to take them that morning).  Shawn was ready to take on the case, maybe even try to purposefully somehow divine the killer, like he had Gus’s phone.  Alright, so the idea of purposefully seeking out such dark, hateful vibes was a bit scary, but he still wondered if he could.  Only, as he stepped outside, he realized his motorcycle was still at the office.  And a quick call to Gus got his voicemail.  He tried Gus’s office next but Gus was out, doing rounds or something.

Shawn considered his options, briefly, and finally decided to make his own way.  It wasn’t as uncomfortable as he had feared to be among people; he found that unless he actually knew the person he didn’t really get much of a reading from them unless he concentrated or unless the person was feeling something very, very intense.  Then it was a bit uncomfortable but not overwhelming so long as he didn’t touch them.

“New rule,” Shawn said out loud to himself, “Avoid people I know when I have a headache.”  And he walked into the office only to find himself confronted by a presence of someone he most certainly did not know.

Which is not to say he didn’t recognize her.

“Henri?” Shawn asked, a bit confused about how she came to be sitting, waiting, when the door had been locked, “Is Gus here?”

“No,” she answered, abruptly.  And Shawn felt the sudden urge to flee.  He didn’t know why; she didn’t feel aggressive and she certainly didn’t look dangerous.  But there was something off about the way her colors swirled chaotically, swimming back and forth between vibrant and muddy.  Shawn began to feel ill again just looking at her; queasiness seemed to be a recurring theme these last few days that he hoped would not be a permanent psychic side effect. 

“Are you alright?” she asked, standing to face him, “Perhaps you should lie down.”

“I don’t need to…” he began to say when the room suddenly began to sway around him.  She moved forward but a hand at his shoulder, guiding him towards the couch.

“I don’t…” he began to say, when her hand shifted to grasp his arm, and suddenly he was assaulted by what could only be described as insanity.

“You killed them,” he whispered, trying to pull away but only succeeding falling onto the couch, “You killed…you…what did you do?  My pills…”

“I had to,” Henri answered, gently helping him to lie down, “I didn’t want to.  But it was for the greater good.  Chinerro had to be stopped.”  Shawn tried to squirm away; quite apart from not wanting to be near a psychotic sociopath he found the insanity that clung to her aura nauseating and terrifying.  And then he looked over her shoulder and saw a spirit.  Really saw one, in the bright light of day.

“Heather,” he whispered.  Henri started and spun around, searching the room wildly.  “She’s so sad,” Shawn continued, “So sad.  You took pills, didn’t you?  But they didn’t make you better; they made you worse.  And you died.”

“The pills were supposed to make her happy!” Henri exclaimed, a sudden furious passion burning in her eyes, “The doctor said they would!  But she killed herself!  They killed her!  And I knew what I must do.  I had to fix the pills, make them better.”

“And you did,” Shawn said, shifting his gaze away from the specter as more pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, “You did.  And then Dr. Chinerro stole them.  All your research, and he stole it and said it was his own.  But why did you kill them?  They were like your sister.”

“No!” she screamed, “No!  And why shouldn’t they die?  It’s what depressed people do, they die!  Like she died!  Like he should have!”

“Why?” Shawn asked again, once again trying to get his sluggish limbs to fight his way from the couch.  When had the world gotten so heavy?

“I didn’t know,” Henri whispered, “I didn’t know.  Not until…I didn’t remember the doctor’s name.  I knew he was young…so young…but he killed her!  He killed my baby sister!”

“Chinerro?” Shawn asked, frowning.  That seemed a pretty large coincidence.

“He changed his name,” Henri explained, “That’s why I didn’t know…but I know it was him!”  So there was no coincidence.  Only insanity.  Another ‘bad’ doctor and she merges the two in her mind into one evil man.

“And me?” Shawn asked, “What did you do to me?”  She blinked, the blinding passion turning off as though she had flicked a switch.  Gently, she ran her hand over his hair, as though petting him, and he shuddered.

“You take pills, too, don’t you?” she asked, her voice sounding compassionate, “Like Heather.  You know what she took, when she did it?”  And she pulled out a bottle of sleeping pills.  An empty bottle.  “You are like her,” Henri whispered sadly, “You try to show the world how wonderfully happy, how full of life you are.  But you’re hiding, aren’t you, like she is.  You shouldn’t have, Shawn.  I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Shawn whispered, “No, I’m not like her.  And they won’t believe it, Henri.”  He wasn’t like her.  He wasn’t.  Heather didn’t see everything, remember everything, have to know everything.  She had been depressed but Shawn was…not insane.  Gus had promised.  Then Shawn blinked and shook his head, trying to clear it of Henri’s hypnotic hold.

He knew he had to get away.  She had done something to his pills.  He suddenly recalled how sick he had been feeling the past few days; he had assumed it was from the psychic spells but what if it wasn’t?  Maybe it was actually a good thing he had thrown up his breakfast last Friday.  He had to throw up now; he had to throw up the pills.  Or was it already too late?  He didn’t want to die; he so didn’t want to die. 

Heather was trying to speak to him again.  She was so sad, and angry, and sad.  If only the spirits would just say what they wanted to say, but he couldn’t hear her.  And she was fading; between his terror and the way his brain felt like it was melting he couldn’t concentrate.  Everything was fading, the colors, the emotions, the connection he felt to the world about him, a connection he hadn’t even realized he had felt until it started to slip away.

“It’s okay,” Henri crooned to him, still petting his head, “Just go to sleep.”  And it would be so easy to do just that.  Instead he gritted his teeth, struggling to get his mind to concentrate, to find a way out.  He couldn’t just lie down and die, not like this.  He didn’t want to die.  He didn’t want to leave Gus with this insane girlfriend, to leave Lassie and Jules, to leave his father.  He didn’t want to die.

Maybe, just maybe, he could use his new powers somehow.  Something like telepathy.  And he concentrated, harder than he ever had in his life.  He tried to get to that place past his fear, past the soft crooning lullaby of a deranged killer, past everything.  And for a brief instance, Heather Heathers stood as clear as day.  She said one word, and faded like mist before the sun.  His concentration broke, the world spinning.  But he still had that one word.

“Phone.”  And though the word itself might have been useless, the gentle nudge to his hand, the one resting awkwardly underneath his back from the odd way he had been lain on the couch, that meant everything. 

Held snug between the couch cushions was Gus’s phone.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Carlton Lassiter was just getting ready to take a quick break when the new files dropped onto his desk. Some red flags had turned up in the background check for one of the Pharmucorpus employees. He scanned it quickly, his eyes widening slightly as he took in the implications.

Dr. Henri Heathers aka Henrietta Robeson. Admitted to a mental institution at the age of twenty-two for attempting to run over her sister’s psychiatrist after said sister’s death. She was declared mentally fit and released two years later. At which point she had her name legally changed to Heathers and went about obtaining her doctorate, eventually leading to her work with Pharmucorpus where she worked closely with Dr. Chinerro in his research on SSRIs. Lassiter was just standing, intent on acting upon this new information, when his phone rang.

“Detective Lassiter,” he snapped abruptly into the phone as he pulled it to his ear. Only to be greeted by a dial tone. Frowning slightly, he glanced at the caller ID. It was Burton Guster. Why would Guster be calling him? Unless he was with Shawn, of course, or had called by mistake. Or Shawn had stolen his phone and was playing around. Then his phone beeped. He had a text message. Suddenly feeling uneasy, though he didn’t know why, he opened it.

‘jlasspie fdlldowmwelj sdndghellljp timmwy’

His frown deepened at the apparent nonsense and he was about to delete it when his own name caught his eye. It could have been chance of course, but then the middle bit also looked a bit like ‘help’. Checking the texter ID he saw it came from Guster’s phone. So sure, it could have been that Shawn had gotten a hold of it and was just messing with him. Or it could actually be that someone was in trouble. Didn’t someone mention that Guster was dating that Heathers woman? Now doubly concerned (though he would never had admitted it), he called for O’Hara.

“See if you can contact Guster,” he told her, “Try his workplace. I’m going to the Psych Office. If I don’t call you in thirty minutes, send back up.”

“What, why?” Jules asked, “Has something happened?”

“I don’t know,” Lassiter answered, “But his girlfriend just might be our killer.” And he tossed the file towards her, not giving her a chance to answer before he walked swiftly out the door. He might not have been a psychic, not even a fake one, but he still had a very bad feeling about this.

The drive to the office didn’t take too long, even without the sirens (he thought it best to keep a low profile until he knew the situation). Nothing looked out of the ordinary. Shawn’s bike was sitting by itself in its usual parking place and no other vehicles were around. Feeling suddenly foolish for rushing over without even trying to call first, Lassiter still didn’t relax his guard. He approached the building cautiously, one hand hovering over his gun, and peered through the window. He couldn’t see anything from this angle but he could hear the soft murmur of voices. And one of the voices was definitely female.

“What are you doing?” a voice asked from behind him and Lassiter jumped, spinning around with his gun. Gus was staring back at him, eyebrow raised, his eyes shifting to look at the gun still aimed at him. Lassiter lowered it quickly.

“Don’t you people ever have work?” Lassiter asked in flustered annoyance, mostly to hide the fact that his heart was still racing a mile a minute.

“I am working,” Gus answered, smoothing down his business attire, “I just came here looking for my phone.” So it definitely wasn’t Guster sending the weird text message then. Aware of the possibility of a hostile in the area, Lassiter nodded curtly and then pulled him away from the window.

“So what are you doing here?” Gus asked again, his voice suspicious.

“Earlier I got this text message from your phone,” Lassiter answered, flipping open his own to show him.

“I knew it!” Gus cried, ignoring Lassiter’s attempt to shush him, “Shawn better not be messing around with my phone again! If he wants to call Korea, he can pay for the phone bill!” And then he actually read the text message. He looked confused for about two seconds, and then snorted.

“What?” Lassiter said, “You can understand it?”

“Well, yeah,” Gus answered, but before he could explain the cryptic message, Lassiter grabbed his phone back and put it in his pocket, his eyes still darting around in surveillance.

“Never mind that now, we don’t have time,” he said, “Shawn may be in trouble.”

“When isn’t he?” Gus asked, frowning now, “It’s just a joke, the message. What do you think it is?”

“A call for help,” Lassiter answered, “Wait here.” And then he eased the door to the office open. The voices were louder inside, at least the woman voice was. He didn’t hear anyone answering her.

“Shhh,” he heard the voice say, “Just go to sleep, baby, and it’ll all be over. It’s okay, you’ll like Heather. Shhh.”

“Serioiusly, what is going on here?” Gus demanded loudly in the doorway, and with no attempt at stealth at all he marched past Lassiter to find Shawn lying on the sofa and his girlfriend leaning over him.

“Gus!” she cried, jumping up and smiling delightedly at seeing him.

“Henri?” he asked, “What’s going on?”

“Shawn wasn’t feeling well,” she answered innocently, “I was helping him sleep.” Shawn didn’t look well. His skin was pale and his limbs still, his eyes only half open as he sluggishly attempted to see who had come.

“Freeze!” Lassiter cried, giving up on stealth as he came from behind Gus with his gun, “Hands where I can see them!”

“Lassiter? What are you doing?!” Gus cried, alarmed that he was aiming his weapon at his girl friend.

“Hey, Lassie,” a soft voice called weakly from the couch, “Might have been wrong ‘bout pineapple.” Lassiter felt some of the tension leave him when he heard Shawn speak, but he still kept his gun carefully trained on the perpetrator, despite Gus’s attempts to get him to lower his arm without actually stepping in front of the gun. Henri stayed surprisingly calm, merely looking confused as she slowly complied with Lassiter’s demand. Seeing that she didn’t seem to be armed or likely to cause trouble, he approached her with his hand cuffs.

Gus hovered between trying to figure out what was up with Shawn and why Lassiter felt the need to secure Henri in handcuffs. Shawn merely watched with wide eyes, not even attempting to sit up. He blinked when his vision went from Lassiter kneeling over Henri to him kneeling right in his face.

“Shawn?” he demanded, his voice tense with urgency, “What did she do?”

“Lassie?” he asked, blinking, his tongue feeling heavy in his mouth, “Am I dreaming?”

“Is it like the placebos?” he asked, hands grabbing Shawn’s shoulders and gripping tightly as though to anchor him to the waking world. Still Shawn felt his eyelids drooping, unable to maintain the energy needed to keep them open.

“Sleep,” he managed to say.

“No, don’t sleep,” Lassiter ordered sharply, “Tell me, what did she do?”

“Sleep,” Shawn said again, then frowning slightly he tried harder, “Like sister.”

“Oh god,” Gus cried from somewhere behind Lassiter, “Tell me, what’s going on?!”

Not yet ready to answer, still not completely sure himself, Lassiter instead pulled out his phone to call O’Hara and update her on the situation. She was already on her way and five minutes later Henri was being taken into custody while Lassiter and Gus attempted to keep Shawn awake. The ambulance arrived five minutes after that.

Gus had found the empty bottle of sleeping pills and Lassiter had deduced what Shawn’s last confusing words had meant, so they were able to give the emergency team a fairly accurate description of what had happened. Shawn hadn’t spoken since those last words. He had barely responded to all of Gus and Lassiters’ prodding and shouting, nor had their attempts to get him to throw up gone well. Gus swore he had kept some ipecac in the bathroom cabinet (because when it came to disaster, Shawn was every bit as much trouble as a toddler and it never hurt to be prepared) but it was missing when he went to look for it. Lassiter guessed the Henri Heathers had removed it around the same time she messed with Shawn’s pills. And sticking their fingers down his throat only had limited success.

At the hospital, the doctors did the best they could. But the fact remained that Shawn was dying, and while there was hope, there was still a very good chance that they were too late.

 


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Shawn was sitting on the sofa in the Psych Office and the dead were with him.  They weren’t speaking or glaring or screaming at him anymore.  But they still burned with color.  One by one, they walked up to him, smiled, and walked out the door until only one was left.

“Heather?” Shawn said, when she did nothing but sit and smile towards him.  The sadness from before had lifted slightly but it was still there in the undercurrent of her colors.  “What’s going on?”

“We’re waiting,” she answered.  This time she spoke clearly.

“Waiting for what?” he asked carefully, already guessing but hoping he was guessing wrong.  She didn’t answer directly, though.  For a long moment she just continued to sit and smile at him.  It was actually kind of creepy and Shawn made a mental note to try it on someone in the future if he felt like annoying them.  If he had the chance.

“Do you remember what happened?” Heather asked after a moment, still smiling.

“Dude, I remember everything,” Shawn answered in his ‘duh’ voice.  “I don’t think I’d forget something like, well, almost sort of dying, do you?”

“Not almost,” Heather answered casually.  Shawn felt cold.  Surely he wasn’t all the way dead.  This was a waiting place; that implied whatever was going to happen hadn’t happened yet.  He wasn’t dead yet.  He wasn’t living yet, either.  He was just…waiting.

“I’m not dead,” he said out loud.

“No,” she agreed.  He let out a shaky breath of relief.  He wasn’t dead.

“But you did die,” she continued in her casual tone, “You just didn’t stay dead.”

“Oh,” he answered, not knowing what else to say.

“They’re all really worried.  Your friends, your dad, your mom.  You can see them if you like.”

“That’s okay,” Shawn answered quickly.  As cool as it sounded to do the whole haunting, wandering spirit thing, he didn’t really want to see everyone being all worried about him.  It made him feel a bit ill, in fact.  They sat in silence for a while.

“So…” Shawn said after a moment, “What is there to do while we’re…waiting?”  Who knew being almost dead could be so boring?  For the first time, she frowned.

“I don’t know,” she answered, “This is your place.”  So he shrugged and wandered around the office.  He noticed some pineapple and set about finding out if spirits who were in a place that he was fairly certain wasn’t really his office were able to eat.

In another, slightly less astral waiting room a group of people sat in grim silence.  They had been pushed out of the hospital room when the patient had gone into cardiac arrest.  Now, finally, a doctor was approaching them.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his tone professional but gentle, “He didn’t make it.”

For a long moment there was a very heavy silence.

“No,” a voice finally growled, clinching their fist in painful anger, “No!”  A consolatory hand came up to comfort but was brushed aside, “This is all that psycho’s fault!  I hope the psycho dies and rots in hell!”  The others shifted nervously on their feet, uncomfortable with his wrath.  One man knelt to pray softly, his fist clasping his cross.

“It wasn’t his fault,” the third man of the group managed to say, “You heard the news.  It wasn’t him.  And he doesn’t deserve…”

“He’s dead!” the first growled, “Don’t tell me what he doesn’t deserve.”  Mike Henderson was dead.

In yet another room in the hospital, another group was waiting with slightly more hope.  Shawn had pulled through those critical hours when the doctors kept repeating ‘it’s too soon to say’.  He was off the ventilator that had kept his lungs working and his vitals were improving.  He just wasn’t awake.  No one would be able to truly relax until he was.

In the astral Psych Office, Shawn stood, feeling antsy.  He had eaten the pineapple, happy to discover it tasted exactly like it should.  And he had played some video games, watched some TV (and discovered that the astral plane, or wherever he was, had some awesome channels.  He could tune it in to literally any time or place in history).  But he had grown tired of it in the end, of sitting alone with only a dead girl for company.  And now he felt antsy.  Something was going to happen soon.  Heather had stood also.

“It’s time isn’t it?” he asked her, “To say goodbye?”

“Yes,” she answered simply, reaching out her arms as though for a hug.  Shawn complied awkwardly, far too aware of the fact that he was hugging a teenage ghost.  She felt perfectly normal; he could even feel her heart beating in her chest.

“Before I go…you go…whatever…” Shawn said, “Can I ask…what is the deal with being psychic?”  She shrugged her shoulders casually.

“You’ve always seen more than everyone else,” she answered, “You just needed a bit of help to…see…more.  But you opened your eyes yourself.  Keep them open; you’ll do well.  Goodbye, Shawn Spencer.”

“Wait!” Shawn cried, but uncertain of what more he wanted to say he finally settled on, “Goodbye, Heather.”

“Open your eyes,” she said, and was gone.  And Shawn opened his eyes.

The End


End file.
